celebrating Our first youth open mic since 2020 !
On Friday, February 3, we partnered with Youth Vs. Apocalypse to host our very first youth open mic at our new home (the last open mic we hosted was in March 2020!).
Not only was this our inaugural open mic post-lockdown, it was hosted by poet, activist, and Chapter 510 alum Aniya Butler, who has been writing with us since she was in 5th grade when she published her first book This World is Going to Change. Aniya also led a writing workshop before the reading, where students wrote about what future they want to see.
Over a dozen young writers took the mic, ages 10-19, including poets from our programs some of which have never gotten in the mic. It could not have been more inspiring and powerful. Prior to the reading, we held our first Youth Advisory Board meeting (more soon on that!), and released the first episode of Fishbowl; A Podcast by Oakland Youth.
It was a night led by our youth leaders beginning to end and is the beginning of so much more to come from our podcaster, advisory board and alums.
