#sisterhoodsummit

The Black Girl Project (BGP) is holding its fifth annual Sisterhood Summit, a symposium designed to provide a platform for young women and girls to develop the tools to advocate, express, create and inspire, while also building active and sustainable networks on local, national and global levels, in Brooklyn, NY on October 24, 2015.  The symposium this year is themed: When We Free: Black Women, Girls, & Emotional Emancipation.  

“Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear.” Zora Neale Hurston

“Everything will change. The only question is growing up or decaying.” Nikki Giovanni

This year’s summit, is inspired by the important and much needed work begun by the Association of Black Psychologists and the Community Healing Network, Inc. and their Seven Keys to Emotional Healing, Wellness, and Empowerment for Black People healing circles.  Our fifth Sisterhood Summit will center the emotional healing and process of freedom and liberation for Black women and girls*.  It is an opportunity for participants to engage in dialogue and interactive workshops that will allow them to ask questions, engage viewpoints, and deepen their insight in their own emotional well-being and self-care.

From the movements Black women and girls have led over the past year, to the successes we may each share when one of us shines, to the harsh and enraging realities of what is happening to our Black youth: Black women and girls must have a space to interrogate and heal from emotional and historical trauma. This year, The Black Girl Project has decided to dedicate our Sisterhood Summit to providing just that: intergenerational Black healing spaces. As all other years, we welcome parents and caregivers of the young women and girls present to join us for a specific track uniquely created for them. There will be a parent track of workshops and tools to support and help facilitate additional conversations and healing circles led by those people who have dedicated their lives to the health, wellness, and liberation of Black women and girls.

We believe at BGP that it is always important to provide a space for a variety of perspectives to engage, grow, and that through the collective sharing of knowledge, telling of our stories, and standing in solidarity with one another that we are able to enrich, broaden, and transform ourselves and our communities.

We are seeking submissions until July 13th for When We Free: Black Women, Girls, & Emotional Emancipation around the following core pathways**:

History of Black resistance

Centering pleasure in sex/uality

Power and gender roles and identity

Representation of healing and Blackness  in media, film, literature, and/or history

Intimacy, communication and consent

Sexual agency, rights, power and education

Sexual health

Coping strategies when interacting with law enforcement

Healing from trauma, heartbreak, etc.

Historical trauma and Black women’s bodies

Reproductive justice, health, and rights

Building networks of solidarity with Black trans women

Online and virtual representations of healing and survival

Survival of QTPOC (queer, trans, people of color)

Challenging heteroseixm

Building networks of solidarity with Black disabled women

Centering the lives of Black trans women

Finding community resources

Food as nourishment, affirmation, and freedom

Friendships among Black women and girls

Deconstructing/Destroying misogynoir

Strengthening your relationship with yourself

Additionally, this year, we will have a section of the summit dedicated solely to parents and other adult caretakers.

Questions to consider when preparing your submission:

What are forms of healing from trauma? How do we build solidarity with communities that are oppressed? What are essential things to know about our bodies as they heal? What does intimacy look and feel like? How is sexual pleasure experienced after trauma? Why may sexual pleasure be a healing experience? What are ways we can build virtual and 3D spaces of support? How do Black women and girls find safety and security online? Living a full and healthy life on a budget/set-allowance/fixed income? These submissions can be in the form of presentations, performances, screenings, workshops, panel discussions, and/or interactive installations.

Submissions should include a 500 word abstract, a resume, accompanying portfolio (if applicable), and a letter of support from a mentor if you are 18 or younger. Application materials should be submitted to this form. We encourage applicants abroad to apply as at this year’s conference, we would like to provide an intercultural videoconferencing exchange.

*The Sisterhood Summit is open to all people who identify as Black and women and/or girls and is inclusive of transgender women and girls as well as people who identify with any femininity/femmeness/etc. spectrum.

**A core pathway is accessible for all those who identify as Black and as a girl/woman. We expect each proposal submitted to understand the summit is inclusive and thus, will be relevant to cis-, intersex, and trans identified Black women and girls.

The Black Girl Project is a grassroots organization that leverages both traditional, and new educational formats and media platforms to assist young women and girls in attaining personal freedom, liberation, and self-actualization. We do this via a multi-pronged approach, utilizing interdisciplinary artistic modalities, primarily Media and Literary Arts, to engage our core audience in creating, remixing, and narrating their own lives. Through on-site workshops and labs, our Leadership Academy, as well as our annual Sisterhood Summit that serves 100+ young women from the Metro NY, and Mid-Atlantic regions, we use the arts to empower, transform, and mitigate inter-generational trauma and cultural/historical grief.

MISSION

Our mission is to transform individual lives and whole communities through reclaiming, rewriting and remixing narratives. Narratives, are just stories; stories that are written, vocalized, photographed, filmed, painted, and more. They have the power to uplift, redirect, and bring balance to individuals and communities, small and large.

We do this work through our Leadership Academy, Sisterhood Summit, Workshops + Labs that focus on issues specific to women and girls throughout the Diaspora.

VALUES

Our work is rooted in three core values:

Truth:  Your truth, your voice, your reality matters. When we are engaging one another from a space of truthfulness, only then can transformation begin.

Hustle:  To hustle is to do the work required for transformation. It involves creativity, the shifting of paradigms, and ingenuity. Hustling reclaims the self.

Liberation:  Personal liberation begets community liberation. We cannot wait to be liberated, it all begins with self.

Go to our website to learn about our upcoming Sisterhood Summit. Submissions for art, presentations, and more are due August 15, 2014.