The CCCADI For the Culture Summer Program is designed to support youth autonomy in navigating and contributing to conversations about race, racism and anti-Black violence, develop future leaders in social justice and cultural equity, and create bridges between art, culture, & social justice.
ABOUT
For The Culture: Harlem Ancestral Renaissance Project (HARP)
For its 2025 chapter, the Harlem Ancestral Renaissance Project is aimed at engaging, educating, and empowering Black and Brown youth, ages 16 to 20, through master classes, community and intergenerational exchange, and art making.
The Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s was a celebratory act of resistance highlighting the intellectual, artistic, and cultural contributions of African Descendants of that time.
Today, Harlem continues to be a melting pot and artistic center of resistance for the African Diaspora, from the motherland of Africa, through the entire Caribbean to the many stops on the Underground Railroad. In a time where our culture continues to be appropriated and erasure is on the rise, we look to youth throughout New York City to highlight and preserve the impact of the African Diaspora on the establishment and future of Harlem.
In the “looking back to move forward” spirit of Sankofa, HARP will have its participants transform their new knowledge into an Artivism Project through art making and social justice that speak to the living presence of the diasporic spirit of joy and resistance in the Harlem of today.
Program Dates
July 7 - August 14, 2025
Mondays - Thursdays from 9:30 AM - 3:45 PM
Program Objectives:
An enhanced awareness of the role that Ancestors played in developing today’s Black and Brown community
The need to temper resistance to racial and social injustice with personal and community wellness
The power of collective and collaborative effort.
Students who complete the program receive a stipend of $16.50 per hour.
Black Constellation: Mapping Our Joy, Dreams, and Liberation
CCCADI has served as an Afrofuturist Time Machine since its inception. It has long situated itself within the womb of Sankofa which is an ancestral technology that asks us to reach into the past and draw from our ancestral knowledge in order to move forward with knowledge of self, courage and conviction. In order to know where we are going, we must know where we are coming from. The Black Constellation project gives us the opportunity to map our joys and dreams towards a lived existence of liberation.
Within Black Constellation: Mapping Our Joy, Dreams, and Liberation, participants will directly engage in Video Archiving CCCADI’s massive 50 year history which includes Scanning, Logging and Cataloguing. As a facet of the dream portion of the Black Constellation project, participants will create their own 2 episode video podcast. Lastly, they will have the opportunity to create a series of Zines which bridges the past, present and future using mixed media and mixed production modalities. Their summer will culminate in the participation and activation at this year’s AfriBembe celebration.
CULMINATING EVENT:
AFRIBEMBÉ FESTIVAL
August 10th, 2025
ABOUT YOUTH PATHWAYS
The For the Culture: Harlem Ancestral Renaissance Project is part of CCCADI’s Youth Pathways. An arts education program, Youth Pathways is designed to provide Black and Brown youth with space and opportunity to experience active community engagement and advocacy, cultural empowerment and enrichment, and a connection to a larger global movement. The youth are leaders of our Diasporic community and we seek to amplify their voices and vision for meaningful and impactful social change.
For questions about the HARP program, please contact: education@cccadi.org
CCCADI’s For the Culture Summer Program is made possible by support from the Warner Music Group/Blavatnik Family Foundation Social Justice Fund, and the Pinkerton Foundation.