By Irene Lee
Fridays are especially exciting for the East Harlem Dreamers because they have Clubs! Every six weeks Dreamers have four clubs to choose from: Conservation, Knitting, Chess, and Art. The second round of clubs just started on April 17th. Girls and Boys Groups also meet during this time -these are long-term commitments meant to develop social and personal strength for the young women and men participating.
Boys (Brotherhood) Group recently finished a collaborative (communication skills building) volcano island project, which will soon erupt in the cafeteria in front of all the Dreamers. The Boys Group is led by Tristan Wilson who has extensive experience in after schools and is currently the East Harlem Program Assistant. Tristan holds a B.A in Psychology. The Girls Group is facilitated by Petra Vega, former East Harlem Social Work Graduate level Intern from Hunter College. Petra has shared a blog on her experiences as a volunteer group facilitator.
My fellow After School Instructors/Group Leaders and I each volunteered to teach a subject that interests us and, as a result, wonderful energy has been flowing through P.S. 7’s halls each Friday afternoon when the Dreamers split for their groups. Dreamers engage with children they may not often spend time with and learn new skills.
Bruni Moraza heads the Knitting Club and patiently teaches her Dreamers knitting techniques for hats and scarves. Though frustrating at first, many of the Dreamers break through their insecurities about not making perfect work, and grow into true knitters. We have not seen a finished scarf yet, but once autumn comes, I know one young girl who will be wearing a knit wardrobe she made herself. Bruni who last year was an AmeriCorp Vista Intern at the IHDF Miami site, has a B.A. in Psychology and Sociology.
Chess Club led with popcorn and a giant chessboard by Quantil Jones. Dreamers are fascinated by this game of tact. The matches often continue for a long time and Dreamers congregate around the chessboard during Choice Time to see whose king will be taken first. Quantil joined the East Harlem team after successfully completing his internship from the Boys Club of NY.
Arts Club is headed off by Kausik Mishra and differs greatly from the typical ‘Art Club’ where painting and drawing are central. Kausik encourages the children to play with different media and design techniques by exposing them to artists and art movements. The students design their own projects that range from soccer t-shirt design to feature films and roller coasters. Kausik is a senior at Eugene Lang College and invites guest artists from the college and elsewhere to talk about their professions and practices with the Dreamers.
Lakia Garner (pictured) and I (Irene Lee) are the co-heads of Conservation Club, a conglomeration of wilderness awareness and conservationist lessons that are a natural outcome of its leaders. Lakia has worked in after school programs before, doing conservationist activities with children in New York City; she holds a B.A. in Forensic Psychology. Besides being a writer and bookbinder, I have studied and taught wilderness awareness skills upstate in the Hudson River Valley at Omi International Arts Center. Despite lack of extensive forests in Harlem, we have had time to tell stories and watch plants grow from seeds and butterflies hatch in our own little gardens in the classroom. We also aid the community by safely picking up trash out in the school’s yard.
Clubs Culmination with a Field Trip:
On May 29th and June 5th Dreamers will be taking a tour of art installations in Central Park, a field trip inspired by the Friday clubs. Creative Time, a nonprofit organization that arranges for public art around the city (most recently a towering piece in the Domino Sugar Refinery conceived of by Kara Walker), is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Central Park Conservancy in the northern end of the park with its Drifting in Daylight show http://creativetime.org/projects/drifting-in-daylight/.
The Dreamers will be wandering through the trails, considering the works of art through the lens of their clubs, sending letters to people who have no earthly addresses, and engaging in the history of the community living in the location of the park before Olmsted. They will be contemplating the colors of sunset in ice cream and looking at birds' nests twined with sticks and parts of basketballs.
As the Dreamers are getting older, almost three years after opening the East Harlem Program, this is our first offering of clubs led by our own After School Instructors and it has been a great success! The immense amount of talent, passion and patience brought in by the Instructors is solidified in activities that offer the children a wide range of new abilities and perspectives. Let the trips on May 29th and June 5th to Central Park be a tradition for years to come with many more clubs.
Irene Lee is a Lang College graduate who has worked with the college to curate the history of Eugene Lang in 2013.