Grand Rising
from
YAYAM
YAYAM engages young adults in three intentional processes.
Harambee
Harambee is a Kiswahili word that means “pulling together.” At YAYAM Harambee occurs in the middle of every WE do and when we get the opportunity to greet one another with the words of peace. In this project, Harambee will signify a quarterly gathering of young adults at a coffee shop, a movie, on a field trip, and at the church. The coffee shop and movie will be times for young adults to get to know one another and share a common experience around a subject matter important to them. The field trip will entail a journey to Montgomery, Alabama’s National Lynching Memorial. The gathering at the church will be designed to engage young adults in dialogue featuring spoken word artists about spirituality in the new millennium.
Social-Networking
Social-Networking as a Talking Drum – YAYAM is currently upgrading it’s Audio-Video (A/V) system. The new system provides the technology needed to reach the world across several platforms, including but not limited to – YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pericope. There are already young adults “30 Somethings” working to assure that communication lines are open between the church and millennials in the community. YAYAM participants will be kept abreast of and engaged in issues affecting their lives. There will be on-line campaigns advocating social-justice matters consistent with YAYAM values, and invited to provide leadership on matters of importance to them.
Ujamaa Entrepreneurial Connection Space
Ujamaa Entrepreneurial Connection Space – First Afrikan has already removed pews from the sanctuary and installed new flooring. Young adults interested in entrepreneurial pursuits will be invited and welcomed to rent below Market rate cubicle space Monday through Friday, network with like-minded young adults, and the use of a permanent address for their budding businesses.
Lithonia is a middle income to middle class community seventeen (17) miles due east of Atlanta. Young adults in the target demographic of 23-29 are typically in college, have a year or more of college education, or have completed their college/technical school education. They are technologically savvy, not likely to be deeply engaged in church of any sort, and tend to want everything they need made available to them when they show up. They are interested in current events and will participate in short-term social-justice actions.
On a macro level South DeKalb County is majority African American, teems with well-educated people (young and old), yet lags behind the rest of the county in terms of business development, the creation and maintenance of affordable housing, and well-funded public schools. Further, as recently as five years ago, the county reported a disproportionate number of chemical spills caused by truckers as well as Six (6) landfills in South DeKalb County as compared to North DeKalb County which is majority white. Millennials, like other South DeKalb County citizens, are caught in the proverbial vice grip of systemic and structural oppressions. The largest symbol of those oppressions is the DeKalb County Jail which is the largest and tallest building in South DeKalb.
YAYAM currently live-streams its Thursday evening study as well as other services on Facebook. Young adults in the specified demographic currently serve as young adult elders, deacons, ushers, leaders in the rites of passage programs, and participant in cultural events like our annual Ancestral Walk and year end Kwanzaa Program.
We are hopeful that YAYAM, as described above, will reach active and inactive young adults already in our community. Our goal here is to engage young adults around matters of interest to them, offer support where needed and possible, to learn from them about their experience in the first quarter of the 21st century; even as we teach and link the stories derived from our collective ancestral memory.
Current and Anticipated Young Adult Participants and their Needs: There are currently 20-30 young adults within the age range of this project. Their needs are varied. Four young adults are married with two young children per couple. There is one college graduate in each couple. Support for child care is a primary area of concern for these couples. All four of the parents have stable jobs. Like the remaining young adults in their age group there is a need for spiritual nurturing suited to their varied circumstances, social support systems designed to help them stabilize, Financial education to help them become economically settled, provided a community of mutual aid, psycho-emotional reinforcement and spiritual support.
Millennials need social, political, and economic road maps, with broad opportunities, to navigate oppressive systems and structures. The compass for the journey through such systems and structures is the Word and Spirit of God grounded in and interpreted through the lenses of Afrikan, Afri-Caribbean and Afrikan American histories and cultures. We believe the aforementioned project proposal is designed to achieve such ends.