2025 Black and Brown Solidarity Art Convening | Planning

We are so excited to announce our second annual Black and Brown Solidarity Art Convening with the help of Healing Illinois. This event is completely planned and executed by local youth.

So far, we are finishing the planning phase and getting into the execution phase. The youth committee started by participating in healing circles. These were co-led by Liz and Benjamin who are both trained as circle facilitators. This was to introduce the youth to restorative justice but also to build trust with one another, especially because they will be holding each other accountable during this process. After, the youth picked a topic for what this convening would be focused on. This year, it’s Creative Experiences within Proviso!

The Convening will be held on June 5th, 2025 from 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM. The youth are looking for creatives to submit their art to be featured at the convening. Please see the link below to submit your piece on your own cultural experiences or cultural experiences within Proviso.

Community Circle | Session 3

Liz and Benjamin led another great community circle on Wednesday. This session, community members wrote some words that resonated with them for safety and belonging. They also wrote one word they are hoping to implement into their life this year. Then, each person put their cards into the circle to symbolize connectedness.

The next community circle will be Wednesday, April 16th from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM. We hope you can make it!

Community Circle | Session 2

Jessica and Benjamin led another great community circle on Wednesday. Although we had to reschedule, we are so grateful our community was able to show up! This session continued to build relationships and trust from the previous session. Community members bring their centerpiece items that represent an important moment or memory. Then, the centerpieces were then added to the middle with Jessica and Benjamin’s pieces.

The next community circle will be Wednesday, March 12th from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM. We hope you can make it!

Healing Circle Training

Over the last two weeks, the team and community members were invited to restorative justice training. Specifically, Andrew Hong of We Each Belong, trained the team in how to lead healing circles, which is a native practice built on restorative justice. Over 4 days, the team got to know each other on a deeper level, creating a circle, and then started to dream what their own independent circles would look like in the future.

We see how impactful circles can be for our community members. This practice was built on the idea that healing can be achieved through conversation, but most importantly, listening. We can’t wait to see how circle will grow in the Proviso community!

Thank you, Andrew, for creating a safe environment for the team! We appreciate your wisdom and kindness.

Black and Brown Solidarity | Creative Dreaming Session 3

Last week, we held our last dreaming session for our black and brown creative projects. We are so happy with the turnout and involvement of our Proviso youth. In this session, we finalized topics for our creative projects and assigned managers. But before, we always start with dinner and a check-in. We had a great conversation about our favorite cultural foods with recommendations on foods/restaurants to try. Then we did a cultural connection on the usage of slurs in the youth community. Then, we started talking about our finalized project ideas. We will have three different projects all surrounding black and brown solidarity in the Proviso district. We cannot wait for you all to see them!

Next, week we will start working on our projects this week!