DAY ONE: THE SYMPOSIUM

2012 marks the 5th year of existence for Lost Lyrics and to celebrate this anniversary we are organizing a 2-Day Conference entitled: The Roots of the Rose. Inspired by Tupac Shakur’s poem The Rose that Grew from Concrete, this conference will explore what it means to build an alternative education movement from the ground up.

Click HERE to learn more about the presenters of the conference

Where: Ryerson University, 55 Gould Street

9am – 10am: Registration

10am – 11am: Introductions and Keynote One

Lee Maracle (bio coming soon)

11am-12pm: Session One

Workshop 1: Mapping Our Safety: Queer, Racialized and Feminine Bodies in the City by Asian Arts Freedom School

This workshop will look into the ways that different individuals experience safety in urban spaces around Toronto with a specific focus on how the way we look affects the ways in which we are able to move through the city. Specifically, the workshop will explore the ways in which race, sexual orientation, gender presentation and class restrict and change people’s movement.

Workshop 2: Panel – Mobilizing the T-Dot Moderated by Kofi Hope

Community Organizing for Social and Income Equality in Etobicoke-North by Nigel Barriffe

Can others imagine ‘Canada’?”—The Projected Imaginings of Muslim Youth Activists by Sameena Eidoo

Workshop 3: Film Screening – “Schooling the World: The White Man’s Last Burden” by Lost People Films

12pm-1pm: Lunch

1pm-2pm: Keynote Two

 This participatory play and discussion by the collective Elimu Sanifu, chronicles the life of a young Kenyan boy grappling between life in Nairobi’s informal settlements and the disconnection he faces with what and how he is learning in school.

In 2012, the agenda to school the world is largely unchecked.  Governments, corporations and development organizations promote schooling as the only, and most important form of learning, with little questioning of how the western formal schooling model and curriculum has displaced indigenous knowledges, and does not teach students how to survive in their environment.  Unshackling Education, is an invitation to discuss how we can make learning more relevant to students’ lived experiences and co-create alternative learning spaces which nurture creativity and community.

2pm-3pm: Session Two

Workshop 1: Panel – Indigenous Knowledge and Teaching  Moderated by Erica Pena

My Owena; My Okra (My Word My Story) by Mahlikah Awe:ri

Remembering and Healing through Cinema by Kurt Orderson

Workshop 2: Money and Meaning by Seed II Soil

The aim of this workshop is to facilitate the process of unlearning ideas about wealth that prevent us from acquiring it, despite the fact we seek it. In order to improve the condition of attendees we are going to help them identify the meaning money has to them. By exploring students’ connection to money and its meaning we begin the process of decolonization around how money is presented to us through the media and other agents of socialization.Through the identification of how they perceive money and treat money, they will develop an understanding of how they relate to it. By identifying these behaviours, attendees will develop a deeper understanding of where their values reside and determine if this is where they would like them to remain.

Workshop 3: Reclaiming Hip- Hop Urban Dance Styles: Context by ILL NANA/DiverseCity Dance Company

Hip Hop is often taught in very gendered way.  You will often hear things like; guys do this, while girls do this. Having these gender binaries informs us of how we must conform to heteronormative ideals of what is male and female.  We are seldomly allowed to explore what movements feel right for us as individuals.  Reclaiming Hip Hop; is an intro to Hip Hop, and street styles that allows for a safer more affirming space to learn Hip Hop. During the class people have the option of changing the movements to what feels right for them.  Gendered movement that is considered “masculine”, “feminine”, in between, or neither are explored, and talked about. Participants are encouraged to find what movement feels right for them. 

3pm-4pm: Session Three

Workshop 1: Summoning the Sacred: A Conversation on the Diasporic Healing Power of Plants by Jeff Tanaka

 This workshop proposal was inspired by Professor Jacqui Alexander and her classes at the Universityof Toronto entitled Aboriginal, Black and Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars and Migrations of the Sacred. Over the course of the semester, the stories of plants mediated our learning process and served as a space for interrogating our varied diasporic histories. Using the knowledge and stories of the jujube, gingko, sweetbroom, lemongrass and willow we will share the urgency with which these plants spoke to us, while also telling stories that speak to our diasporic histories in Asia, the Caribbean andAfrica.

Workshop 2: Political Education for Building the People’s Struggles by Kabir Joshi-Vijayan and Steve DaSilva from BASICS

This workshop will explore the significance and function of internal political education in the creation of a community news service such as BASICS – why we engage the questions of capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, revolution, and historical examples related to these questions, and how we conduct education for different levels of study.  It will provide an overview to the more practical and technical aspect of educating for social change. We will cover the basic principles of people’s journalism – what is it and how does it differ from corporate journalism. 

Workshop 3: Film Screenings on HIV Peer Education by Empower

Empower will be showcasing a series of videos 2-5 minutes in length that were created as training resources for HIV peer educators.  Videos were created in collaboration with local community artists, and visioned, produced, and edited entirely by youth.

Films include:

• Sexing it up: what’s Burleseque got to do with it?
• Poetry as Expression: How to use spoken word to talk about HIV
• What’s cooking?: Facilitating your HIV workshop
• Thinking about Process

Darrick Smith

To most, he is a revolutionary thinker and educator, but to his students he is a father, brother, counselor, and a friend. Perhaps one of the most admired and respected young educators in the Bay Area, Smith has found a way to teach what many would consider post-baccalaureate material to inner-city, often times low performing students and watch them develop into better thinkers, students, and community members.

 Darrick Smith is the founder and former director of the TryUMF program (Trying to Uplift My Folks), a youth empowerment program in Oakland, California. He is also the former Co-Principal of June Jordan School for Equity in San Francisco, California and has served as an instructor of sociology at DeAnza College in Cupertino, California and Laney College in Oakland, CA. He is currently the Center Director for LearningWorks, a educational policy organization focusing on equity issues in higher education.

5pm-5:30pm: Closing

On-Going Spaces Throughout the Symposium:

Healing and Self-Care Space:  Offering services in Reiki, acupuncture, art therapy and a variety of workshops throughout the day.  Facilitated by Amrit Singh, Sun aka The Real Sun, Chiedza Pasipanodya, Tanya Pillay, Kemba King, Kim Crosby and Braxton Wignall.

Vendor Fair: Featuring Equitable Education Initiative, A Different Booklist, Women’s Health in Women’s Hands, Stolen from Africa, mina danielle designs and Junior Burchall’s The Icons Series

Lost Lyrics 5-Year Anniversary Conference is supported by: Toronto Arts Council, Toronto Community Foundation, Ontario Trillium Foundation, Centre for Urban Schooling, Ryerson Student Union

“A renowned, respected teacher and mentor to thousands, Sobonfu Somé is one of the first and foremost voices of African spirituality to come to the West. Somé was born in Dano, Burkina Faso, a remote West African village with a population of about two hundred people. Dano has preserved the old ways of African village life, with family structures, spiritual practices, and methods of living that have been in place for more than ten thousand years. In The Spirit of Intimacy, Somé distills the ancient teachings and wisdom of her native village to give insight into the nature of intimate relationships.

Somé generously applies the subtle knowledge from her West African culture to this one. Simply and beautifully, she reveals the role of spirit in every marriage, friendship, relationship, and community. She shares ancient ways to make our intimate lives more fulfilling and secure and offers powerful insights into the “illusion of romance,” divorce, and loss. Her important and fascinating lessons from the heart include the sacred meaning of pleasure, preparing a ritual space for intimacy, and the connection between sex and spirituality. Her ideas are intuitively persuasive, provocative, and healing—and supported by sound practical advice, along with specific rituals and ceremonies based on those used for thousands of years. With this book, the spiritual insights of indigenous Africa take their place alongside those of native America, ancient Europe, and Asia as important influences on Western readers.” -goodreads.com

You can read  the “forward” and the first Chapter here

LOVE THIS!!!

Damian Marley World Premiere of SET UP SHOP Music Video.

Get The Single NOW on iTunes http://bit.ly/Iw4bMF

Follow Damian Marley on Twitter at http://twitter.com/damianmarley
Follow Damian Marley on Facebook at http://facebook.com/damianmarley

New visuals for ” The City” by the Game feat: Kendrick Lamar

SIZE

SMALL MEDIUM LARGE XL XXL

COLOUR

OLIVE GREEN BLACK WHITE DARK BROWN RED GREY

I know some many of you have been looking for this design online! Well… here you go!