Our Color Me Community initiative was featured by the Afterschool Alliance on their national blog in April 2023, highlighting our youth-led work with the World Bank and other local, national, and international clients.
From the blog:
“In Washington, D.C., what began as an orientation for people volunteering at the Life Pieces To Masterpieces afterschool program has evolved into a training/workshop that prestigious national and international agencies are tapping into. 2022 Afterschool Ambassador Andrew Blickle, the Institutional Marketing Manager at Life Pieces, reports that 10 boys from Life Pieces worked with leadership to lead a workshop for 200 World Bank staff members in March.
Life Pieces works to change the way Black boys and young men see themselves and the way the world sees them. Its Color Me Community Initiative was created after the murder of Trayvon Martin, when tensions were high and boys in the program – who had to constantly confront negative, harmful images attacking their identities – had the opportunity to share knowledge with volunteers who were navigating complex feelings of guilt, blame, and shame following the attack.
Color Me Community events, workshops and conversations are co-led by boys in the program along with their mentors. They provide a nurturing, nonjudgmental environment for people of all races to safely grapple with issues that divide and separate us from one another. The Initiative uses interactive, arts-based activities to provide a safe, collective environment for people to explore the lenses through which they see the world, and better understand how others’ unique lenses affect them.
In addition to its work with the World Bank, Life Pieces has a partnership with the U.S. State Department’s International Visitors Leadership Program. Hundreds of changemakers from more than 50 countries have visited the program in D.C.’s Ward 7 to learn from the youth on topics ranging from social change through the arts to youth civic engagement in marginalized communities.”
