DIVAS for Social Justice hosted its Winter Solstice event at Garden of Resilience on December 4, 2023. The Winter Solstice event celebrated its second year at the garden highlighting the youth development social action project, The Anti-Gun Violence Asset Mapping Project.DIVAS for Social Justice initially piloted the project in the Bronx with the support of The Verizon Foundation. The organization would like to expand the project to all five boroughs.
The community mapping project focuses on creating an interactive project that highlights the “good” of the community in East New York and Laurelton. Youth, ages 11-14 participate in the free after school program, STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Arts Math) for Social Change Program funded by Department of Youth and Community Development. The Anti-Gun Violence Asset Mapping Project was awarded additional support by Consolidated Edison this year. The 1st iteration of the project was on display at the event. The culminating project will be an online interactive map highlighting health and wellness and economic initiatives in Laurelton and East New York. This past fall semester, students learned the foundation of understanding :
- Community mapping-involving residents in the practice of identifying the makeup of their neighborhood through google maps or other topographic mediums.
- Community assets – while community assets are common neighborhood staples like libraries, hospitals and parks, identifying assets initiated by neighbors.
- Conducting a community street audit- Survey the neighborhood by conducting an audit that documents what organization, businesses and initiatives focus on health and wellness and economic development.
For the past three years, DIVAS for Social Justice has worked closely with Dr. Kayla DesPortes and a research team from New York University in developing The Anti-Gun Violence Asset Based Mapping Project. The curriculum focuses on utilizing Web. 2.0 skills to teach the importance of understanding interactive community mapping. The curriculum is written from an asset based stand point to encourage students to identify community assets in underserved communities that help fight gun violence. The focus is to accentuate the positive in communities of color rather than identifying the deficits. Deficits in communities of color are often the focus in “reimagining”the neighborhood. This project takes a different approach in hopes that the culminating interactive map can be used as an organizing tool to pour more funding and opportunities into communities of color based on economic development and health and wellness.
The 1st iteration of the project highlighted the students in Laurelton conducting a community street audit that was documented by participating in an 8 block walk of Merrick Blvd and charting the local businesses that focus on health and economic development. In addition, students utilized photography to document their findings and laser cut neighborhood maps. Students from East New York concentrated on identifying local community assets within a three block radius. Prior to embarking on the community street audit, students learned to use jamboard, a free digital whiteboard (Web 2.0) that served as a brainstorming tool to highlight the meaning of community and highlighting community assets through traditional research.
The Anti-Gun Violence Project final exhibition will debut in late spring 2024. Students will laser cut a 20×30 neighborhood map containing QR codes that will feature multimedia content highlighting the health and economic development initiatives through film, video and sound. The project will live online but also be featured in exhibits in both East New York and Laurelton.
