HipHopForChange Inc.
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Mission Statement
HipHopForChange, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit that uses grassroots activism to educate people about socio-economic injustices and advocate solutions through hip hop culture. We raise funds for local causes that enrich marginalized and historically oppressed communities.
About This Cause
I've been educating youth in historically neglected neighborhoods for precisely twenty years here in the Bay Area. In that time, I've seen first-hand the disconnect between the justice issues that our children face and the institutions trying to bring about change in their neighborhoods. Unfortunately, our children are all too familiar with the inequities they face, even when they don't possess the vocabulary to explain them or understand the mechanisms that create them. Conversely, many organizations in education and activism are at a loss trying to figure out how to inspire the youth to join in the fight for systemic change. My life's work has been bridging this gap for our children by educating them about issues in their community by using the most powerful tool they have the most efficacy with; their creative expression. Urban Youth and Youth of Color carry no more powerful creative force today than Hip Hop in their lives. Policy-makers wonder how to get inner-city kids to focus on health and nutrition while half the break-dancers I know are vegan and talk about the mind-body connections with kids all the time. Art Teachers ask me how I get the children to fall in love with chiaroscuro and perspective? I tell them every experienced graffiti artist I know has to deal with scores of youth wanting to learn their techniques and the craft. NGOs ask me how to inspire Kids of Color to wish to learn about pollution in their backyards and take action? Well, we take kids into nature with naturalists and get that rapping and painting murals on ecosystems and environmental justice. They create masterpieces that bring tears to their parent's eyes. It's so foreign to me that many folks still might not instantly understand why I've been so successful teaching justice and self-love to Twenty-eight thousand kids, using a thing like Hip Hop as the vehicle. This validation problem I have is the same problem our children do, who mostly walk around in Hip Hop clothes, using the Hip Hop lexicon, and embodying Hip Hop Culture. Our youth, especially disadvantaged youth, fall in love with Hip Hop entirely because it's the only culture rooted so thoroughly in self-affirmation and the celebration of self. For kids who lack esteem, art classes, culturally relevant education, and positive representation in the media, this becomes the chance to practice celebrating themselves for a change. Hip Hop is the spirit that is the energy behind our self-driven pedagogy, and connecting our community to the positive outcomes of that Hip Hop Culture is our mission. However, that mission can be challenging when people don't often see the positive side of my community. The cold reality is that 93.3% of all Hip Hop songs in the Top 10 chart weeks (Billboard 200 + Hot 100) between 2010 and 2018 have come from three major labels. Regardless of the rise of social media and every creative's ability to put out their work online, when it comes to production and distribution to the masses, positive Hip Hop lacks the support from the industry and the resources necessary to push their message to a broader audience. So we have a community of millions of powerful young voices ready to aim their power at the future and a worldwide audience begging for access to uplifting expression that might be key to sparking social change. Finally, we have a model to put Hip Hop back in our community's hands. Khafre Jay Founder and Executive Director Our work stands on these three fundamental pillars: Grassroots Employee Development Program Hip Hop For Change uses a portion of our funds to hire a diverse staff of activists who go into affluent white communities to educate the public on race and social justice issues. Our in-house Grassroots Program has held between 35 and 50 thousand conversations a year, bringing close to 70% of our 4.5 million budget revenue throughout our nine years in existence. But, more importantly, we've been able to employ over a thousand members of our community with a living wage, full-time and part-time employment, and on-the-job employee development training. Our grassroots model helps us grow our donor base while also providing funds for our operational costs, on-the-job training for staff, and marginalized schools and organizations that can't afford our education services. Raising the next generation of activists is at the center of this program's mission. Education Program Our Education Department breaks down barriers between youth and justice issues that affect their lives and communities using Hip hop as a vehicle. We offer several programs and workshops, teaching the history, principles, and the artistic expression of Hip Hop Culture nationwide. In addition, our education department gives youth opportunities to healthy coping mechanisms through these new practices for positive introspection and expression. As the new year of 2022 begins, over 28,000 students, grades K-12, have experienced our curricula, while around half of our programming has been given free, free of charge, to under-resourced institutions. In addition, our education department hires Hip Hop artists within our community, training them in trauma-informed care to better serve our youth. Justice Events Hip Hop For Change runs a series of events that help youth and Communities of Color engage with issues like environmental justice and Women's empowerment. We partner with large, mission-aligned NGOs that provide financial backing to ensure our events are always free to the public and provide the most access possible. In addition, we invite smaller BIPOC organizations to hold space at our events to bring awareness to their missions to better connect them to the people they serve. These events also bridge the gap between large and small NGOs working on similar tasks while connecting historically segregated neighborhoods and people with similar passions for change. In this way, we build powerful coalitions around equitable spaces that also serve to financially support Hip Hop artists that speak authentically to prevalent issues facing Black and Brown communities. In our time, we've worked with small and local community organizations, to huge NGOs like Kaiser, UCSF, the DeYoung, Asian Art, and Children Creativity Museum, and Parks California, to curate events that elevate justice issues and bring real solutions to the table.