When I Am Free: Community Visions of Liberation
Winter/Spring 2012
Neighborhood Writing Alliance (NWA) writers will explore notions of freedom and individual and community liberation.

The meaning and implications of “freedom” are extensively debated, written about, and interpreted by activists, scholars, leaders, artists, and writers. Our individual definitions of “freedom” and its relationship to our homes, our bodies, and our minds can be further complemented by movements that support education and empowerment. NWA’s project will draw from historical and contemporary texts, scholars, and community experts to expand notions of freedom and will take a broad approach to freedom highlighting issues such as disability rights, sexual exploitation and human trafficking, media literacy, racial and cultural profiling, and gender discrimination.

• News Literacy Workshop with Peter Adams (the News Literacy Project), Natalie Moore (WBEZ), and Rhonda Gillespie (freelance journalist, formerly with the Chicago Defender). Learn more about how to shape and affect local media coverage at this panel event exploring the role of savvy media consumers in today's world; the historic and contemporary roles of community, ethnic, and mainstream news organizations; as well as questions about bias, credibility; and digital citizenship. The presenters will each give a short presentation, then conduct an open discussion with workshop attendees about what news is, what gets covered and why, and how consumers can develop the skepticism and skills necessary to know what to believe in the news and information landscape. Participants will explore the role of citizen journalists in the digital age and will discuss effective strategies for writing letters and emails to the editor.
• “Walking the Distance of Your Vision” Verse Journalism Seminar Series with Quraysh Ali Lansana. Lansana will introduce Verse Journalism techniques created by poet and Pulitzer Prize winner Gwendolyn Brooks. Participants will explore how poetry can function as a vehicle to access a more robust, more human investigation of news and events. Participants will explore topics of identity, world view, and community awareness identifiers, and will discuss examples from a variety of texts including Lansana’s “Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy, & Social Justice in Classroom & Community.”
• Sexual Exploitation and Human Trafficking Seminar and Open Forum with the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation and the Voices and Faces Project. This public workshop will introduce issues of sexual exploitation and trafficking in the Chicagoland area, and will include personal testimonies from area survivors. Attendees will participate in a brainstorming discussion which will lead to the later creation of a toolkit for writers to promote awareness and inspire activism in their communities.
• “The Missing” writing workshop. NWA will participate in The Missing, a public art/ consciousness raising/ community engagement project to focus public attention on the epidemic of mass/hyper incarceration in Chicago. The goals of this project are to reduce the shame of families and others who have a loved one who is incarcerated by finding a public way to embrace them; to encourage Chicagoans to focus their eyes, ears, minds and spirits on the problem of mass incarceration; and to build a base of supporters committed to addressing the problem of mass incarceration in Chicago.