Original Post Date
2020-07-31 04:12 PM
Original Body
The world is fighting an unseen enemy but learning still has to go on. Deecolonize Academy exists to teach and decolonize the minds of youth that were told they were stupid and useless in the public school system their entire lives. This summer is overshadowed with the worldwide pandemic called COVID-19. It keeps people locked inside their houses out of fear, regarding everyone they came in contact with as an enemy. It makes people reckless out of fear, causing accidents and inciting arguments that would have not been started if not for this virus. However, amidst all of this, learning still has to go on. Every other school is closed, there are little to no summer programs available, and the learning has all but halted as it has taken a backseat to the safety of everyone. That isn't the case here at Deecolonize Academy.
We are continuing the summer program we do every year, and when the school year picks back up we will reopen Deecolonize Academy along with it. This is not done casually, and we are not running this carelessly. Our summer camp is employing the youth to build things on the land of Homefulness, write stories to educate the world with our opinions and knowledge. We take stories of police brutality and gun violence and publish stories talking about how we feel about them, being victims of the environments that encourage things like that happening. Hopefully, someone will read the story I wrote about gun violence and realize the effects of that happening frequently in neighborhoods like mine and decide to do something to help change.
Along with the stories we wrote, we built. When taking care and teaching youth, there needs to be a physical aspect of the work we do, and construction is our way of doing that. In the duration of this camp, which only lasted about 8 days over a month period, we built a chicken coop for the chickens we have on homefulness. We used skills taught to us by our mentor Muteado to put together a livable coop for our animals which provide us eggs.
There is a constant mask requirement, washing hands before and after P.E, and many more things to keep us as safe as possible in these times. The fact that we are even able to remain open as an institution of learning means we have to be extremely vigilant about sanitation and public health awareness. I am a youth scholar who was formerly houseless and I get lonely very quickly. This is especially bad for me among the COVID-19 epidemic where everyone needs to stay inside, and contact like hanging out casually with friends is forbidden. This camp allows for me to hang out with my friends and learn, express myself through stories and build. It allows me to play basketball with my friends to keep me healthy through physical exertion. I don't have to be alone anymore among the corona virus, and I’m getting paid through our youth journalism stipend.