The Show That the Art Students Neglected to Name Because They Were so Busy Rehearsing

Inspired by a recent visit to a Neo-Futurist Performance of  “Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind,” Chicago Program students created their own 2 minute plays in the Neo-Futurist style.    “The single unifying element of these plays is that they are performed from a perspective of absolute honesty.”   http://www.neofuturists.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=45

Our wonderful colleagues created true stories about Chicago, growing up, love, sororities, critics, friends and no friends, orange juice, sock puppets, pigeons and fish.  We laughed, we cried, we gagged, we laughed some more.  Our colleagues entertained us with comedy, tragedy, the morbid, and the gross.  Truly inspiring!  Awesome job, Arts students!

The economy is driving people who are not homeless to our door

“The economy is driving people who are not homeless to our door,” said Jim LoBianco, director of Chicago StreetWise Magazine.  Chicago Program students met with LoBianco at the new StreetWise location in Uptown.  StreetWise ,  the oldest street newspaper in North America, started 20 years ago.  It’s mission is to help people help themselves to self-sufficiency through gainful employment.   Vendors purchase the magazine for $.90 and sell it for $2 -- the profit of $1.10 goes directly to the vendor.   Content of the magazine focuses on social justice issues, poverty and homelessness. 

The newspaper started as an enterprise for the homeless only.    However, more and more the program is helping those facing homelessness due to loss of employment, or loss of income.   

Streetwise has 200 vendors, and actively recruits panhandlers to join the program.  Each vendor abides by a code of conduct.  He/she establishes two or three personal goals, and goals are tracked.  Most vendors can afford to pay for a room within a couple of weeks.  Sixty percent of the vendors are in the program short term, from nine months to three years, as they move on to other employment opportunities.  

The program provides direct support  to social service programs that help clients overcome barriers that contribute to unemployment and homelessness, such as workforce development, housing/shelter and medical care http://streetwise.org/2011/10/social-service-support/ .

Of the 40 percent that remain n the program long term, 10 percent are physically challenged and 30 percent sell StreetWise as a means of extra income.  These vendors are all in stable housing; StreetWise will not enable homeless living.

Louder than a Bomb

Every year, more than 600 teenagers from over 60 Chicago area schools gather for the world’s largest youth poetry slam, a competition known as "Louder Than a Bomb".   Founded in 2001, Louder Than a Bomb is the only event of its kind in the country—a youth poetry slam, http://youngchicagoauthors.org/performances.html

The structure of Louder than a Bomb requires kids to work together in teams, presenting, critiquing, and rewriting their pieces, as opposed to focusing on individual performances.  To succeed, teams have to create an environment of mutual trust and support. For many kids, being a part of such an environment is life-changing.

Chicago Program students viewed the passionate and inspirational film, LOUDER THAN A BOMB, and then met with Lamar Jordan, one of the stars of the film.  http://www.louderthanabombfilm.com/about-the-film.php

Jordan spoke about his experiences and shared some of soulful and inspirational poetry. 

Chicago has a long history of social change.

Chicago Program students learned about the work of Jane Addams, as we toured the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.   

Jane Addams had this radical idea that you can make change happen by just moving into a neighborhood. (Jody Kretzmann)    She first experienced this radical idea when she toured a settlement house in East London.  In 1889, she and Ellen Gates Starr bought a mansion in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Chicago, back of the stockyards.  The two opened their doors, and, by listening to people, and observing the conditions they faced, they began to create a specific agenda of services and reform.   Hull-House soon offered a day nursery for children, a club for working girls, lectures and cultural programs, and meeting space for neighborhood political groups.   http://www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/_learn/_aboutjane/aboutjane.html   By it’s second year of existence, Hull House was host to 2,000 people a week.   http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1931/addams-bio.html    

A highlight of the tour was walking into Addams' bedroom and viewing two sides of Addams’ life -- her Nobel Peace Prize… showcased alongside pages of her FBI file.  Addams was the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 for her work in the peace movement.    Her FBI file concerns a treason investigation opened in 1924 involving the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, of which Addams was a founding member.

Next, we headed to the Heirloom Farm of Hull House, an urban farm that, in addition to other projects, provides fresh and organic vegetables for the Re-thinking Soup kitchen.    

Re-thinking Soup Kitchen

Every Tuesday the Hull-House Museum hosts a modern day soup kitchen that is a public and communal event where folks gather together and eat delicious, healthy, soup and have fresh, organic conversation about social justice issues.   We met in a space where the likes of Upton Sinclair, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, Gertrude Stein and other important social reformers met to share meals and ideas, debate one another, and conspire to change the world.  http://www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/_programsevents/_kitchen/_rethinkingsoup/rethinkingsoup.html

The day we dined at the Re-thinking Soup kitchen they served delicious Smokey Sensual Eggplant soup.  We put our taste, touch and hearing senses to work as we closed our eyes and listened to audio documentaries from the Third Coast International Audio Festival.  One story focused on the experiences of a woman who taste-tests  chocolate for a living (yum!).  Another story had us visiting a restaurant in the dark, only able to hear the sound of waiters and clattering dishes, and feeling our way around the table for our bowl, spoon and bread.

Later that day we took a bus tour through historic neighborhoods in the city.  It was a cold, blustery day, but we were able to see some of the beautiful architecture of the city, including Chinatown and the south loop.  We also saw beautiful murals in Pilsen, learned about the Haymarket riot and rode through the Old Skid Row and what once was Maxwell Street, a lively, open air marketplace.

CP students shake hands with Mayor Rahm Emanuel

At a meeting with Alderman Joe Moore on the north side of Chicago September 16, Chicago Program students were thrilled to meet with Mayor Rahm Emaneul, who was holding an impromptu press conference that morning!   The Mayor shook hands with Chicago Program students and opened the press conference by welcoming students of the ACM program. 

At the press conference, Mayor Emanuel announced the city’s partnership with Foursquare https://foursquare.com/explorechicago .  The goal is to get folks to explore different parts of the city.  If you check in at five of 20 spots around the city, you can earn an official city badge, and brag to all your friends that you’ve earned the badge.

The press conference was held at the Heartland Café, http://www.heartlandcafe.com, located in Rogers Park on the far north side of Chicago.  The Heartland Café is one of the 20 locations in Chicago's Foursquare initiative.  One of the owners of the café, Katy Hogan, was a faculty member of the ACM Urban Studies Program, and was actually one of Joe Moore’s teachers when he was a student on the program.  Joe is an alumnus of Knox College, class of 78.

Alderman Joe Moore spoke to our group about the responsibilities of an alderman, and the powers  and  abuses of power.  He also talked about participatory budgeting, where people in the community decide how community dollars are spent.   In response to student questions, Moore talked about the beautiful murals abundant in the community and empowering youth by allowing youth 16 years old and above to vote on the spending decisions in the community.