Bridging STEAM & Zen to Build Character

DIVAS (Digital Interactive Visual Arts Sciences) for Social Justice will be offering fall programming to the Bed Stuy community .The organization’s mission to encourage youth in underserved communities to use technology towards social change. DIVAS will be offering two programs this fall and their robotics team DIVAsteam will compete in 2014 First Lego League Competition. The fall programs being offered are the STUY STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Arts Math) Club and Imaging Ourselves. The STUY STEAM Club will be offered on Mondays afterschool and Saturday afternoons for children ages 5-8 to learn beginning robotics with Lego Mindstorm and Digital Media through time lapse photography. Imaging Ourselves is the organization’s staple program training girls in the basics of digital photography and Adobe Photoshop while participating in discussions of how images of women are portrayed and manipulated by the media. This program is for girls ages 8-15.

In addition to offering technology training, DIVAS has entered into a community partnership with the Brooklyn Zen Center’s Awake Youth Project. Awake Youth Project (AYP) provides teens with mindfulness and meditation tools to transform harmful behavior, deepen emotional awareness and live in accordance with their most authentic aspirations. DIVAS for Social Justice will visit the Awake Youth Project during fall programming to provide a safe space for the youth we are serving to learn about mindfulness and meditation. The partnership goal is for our youth to learn the importance of being able to quiet down negative thoughts in order to perform better academically and socially in their lives. The Robotics Team will also start every session before competition practice with meditation in order to gain focus and show gracious professionalism while participating in qualifying competitions in Brooklyn for the First Lego League Competition. AYP & DIVAS long term goal is to teach the importance of showing the relationship between social justice and meditation in historical context as well as organizing events that reflect the importance of social change and non-violent protests. 

Space is still available to register for Fall programming with DIVAS for Social Justice. Please visit our website at: http://www.divasforsocialjustice.org or email us at: diva4justice@gmail.com