Dear Breaking Walls Supporters,

I write from a place of joy truly made by my receiving the Billie Allen Memorial Sponsorship that will enable me to intern at the United Nations. For me, it is by far, literally and figuratively, my biggest opportunity ever. This opportunity is something clearly more than I could ever dream of happening. The United Nation’s history is aligned with my beliefs. It is the place where anyone who wishes to change the world wishes to intern. It is a place that historically has changed the world. The reason we have not had World War III is because of the United Nations. In the dark days of apartheid in South Africa in 1972, it was this very institution that recognized Apartheid as a Crime Against Humanity. From miles away, the United Nations felt our pain, and as early as that year they let us know that they stood with us. I write forty-nine years later about myself having an opportunity to sit in the chamber where such titans sat. 

It’s unimaginable what effect this will have on me. As someone who is a law student, I understand the United Nations as the ultimate legislature and ultimate executive and ultimate judiciary. Its laws are a guiding light for all governments and citizens who are party to them. This opportunity will take me to the very institution I admire, where I will serve their values and carry out their mission. In my capacity as a future lawyer, this will do a lot for my career and is influencing me to consider seriously being a Human Rights lawyer.

All I am trying to say is that this institution has had an indirect impact on my life which is significant. I am very grateful from a personal level and in my capacity as a future lawyer.
I never dreamed of an opportunity that affords me to be in contact with so much greatness. Growing up, I never saw myself worthy of such an opportunity. Growing up on the streets of the Phillippi Township, the situation really does not allow for a person to easily dream. Success and great experiences are something so rare that some people feel it is not even worth trying. Rainbow Dreams Trust and Breaking Walls have given me a window to the world and because of that, I have increased the horizon for myself. This is such an amazing story I cherish. A horizon that will see me seeing myself in that world that is better than where I come. Breaking Walls has prepared me for this, my first step I take into the real world. 
I am a young man who believes that all forms of discrimination are Illegal and should, in all forms, be abolished. I believe the world is a shared place in which even though we are from different places, we should have mutual concern for others. I believe that borders do no longer hold people from making meaningful life with people miles away. All beliefs beautifully proclaimed by Billie Allen.

I want to thank you for your generosity in giving me such an opportunity. For caring for me. It is something that I can never be able to say thank you enough. Thank you for being concerned, thank you for making me be assured again that there are people who care, and that the caring society I wish to exist, does exist. It just needs to be something that more and more people get involved in promoting. Through this opportunity, I know it is worth pursuing a course of caring and being really concerned.

Interning at the United Nations will take me to another level. A level where I can only grow. Sometimes it’s an opportunity like this that can change one’s life from ordinary to extraordinary. In all of this, I carry my Phillippi community on my shoulders. I represent them and my Breaking Walls, global family. An achievement for me is an achievement for them. It will spark a light in me. I will do my best to make sure I keep this light shining so that the ones who come after me will gain warmth and hope.

Yours sincerely,

Athenkosi Nyembezi
Breaking Walls ambassador, 2021 Billie Allen Memorial Sponsorship Recipient

Virtual Artist Cooperative
July 12 to 16
July 19 to 23
8:30am – 11:00am EST/USA

WHAT:
Breaking Walls was initially focused on youth in Brooklyn and Bethlehem. From our first in-person 2012 Berlin Summit to our first 2020 Virtual International Artist Cooperative, we have become an inclusive, global, creative program where our young people write, perform and share face-to-face dialogue while being ambassadors of peace using the arts.

Ten (10) two-hour-thirty-minute virtual sessions in which Breaking Walls artists will collaborate with their peers in our international community on ensemble-building, creative writing, skill development, and creating trust in a virtual world. Each Breaking Walls Director/Artistic Mentor Team consists of experts in a specific artistic discipline – i.e.: vocal music, dance/movement, Spoken Word, and video art, as well, film and theatre Directors. A Virtual Artist Cooperative culminates in the creation of a collage video presentation screened live on our Breaking Walls YouTube Channel.

WHO:
Young people ages 14 to 24 in Barcelona, Spain; Brooklyn, NY; Bucharest, Romania; Cape Town, South Africa; Detroit, MI; Galilee, Israel; Santiago, Chile; Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Tangier, Morocco; and, Warsaw, Poland. Breaking Walls will happily open its arms to other youth communities!

WHY:
Young people across the globe are all emerging from quarantine to face the new challenges ahead worldwide. As a creative cross-cultural, cross-border community, Breaking Walls understands that the future holds so many unknown factors for everyone, everywhere. Breaking Walls goal to connect these young as ambassadors of peace using the arts reflects our dedication in assisting young people in transforming their own lives and futures, as well as those of their international peers, home community, and the broader world as they struggle against, while positively challenging xenophobia, social injustice, racism, and gender violence.

On March 19, 2021, Mariam and Safaa launched their CONNECT*CREATE*CHANGE PodCast. In their own words, they share their insight, inspiration, and passion for change.

“If there is something that Breaking Walls taught us it is to be the change that you wish to see in the world. Over these last few years, Safaa and I realized that we wanted to help cheer people up and be there for them. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, we started listening to podcasts every single day. Then, our Breaking Walls Virtual Artist Cooperative happened in August and we were inspired by all the different projects our fellow global brothers and sisters were bringing to life- we decided to do the same: to plant the seed, nurture it and watch it grow.

Safaa and I believe helping others is not only beneficial to those on the receiving end, but also to those who actually do the benevolent act as it provides them with a sense of self-accomplishment and immense joy. Furthermore, the act of giving creates long-lasting bonds that build stronger communities with happier and healthier individuals.

We chose to start a podcast because it focuses on words; the words you hear, read, and speak are what can make you – YOU. you also get to listen to meaningful conversations about people’s experiences with people. Plus, audio is one of the most intimate forms of media for it encourages you to picture the story in your mind with your imagination and deeply think about a lot of ideas that are being discussed. There are numerous individuals in this world who have interesting opinions and beliefs that must be shared and we can render this possible by demolishing all of our internal barriers and embracing our common vulnerability.

Our inherent goal is to give the public a shift in their mindset, a hopeful and more beautiful approach to show them that the grass is greener on the other side because we water it and so can anyone and everyone. The messages are a mixture of personal stories told by our guests who come from different backgrounds as well as useful techniques you can use to overcome your doubts and fears.

The Connect Create Change podcast offers a plethora of useful advice and insights from a wide variety of individuals, so you’re sure to find something helpful and uplifting.”

Here’s an episode for you to enjoy… S1E1: “Fear of Change” w/ Fran Tarr episode of Connect Create Change
CLICK HERE, PLEASE

“Love, respect, and our effort to connect, create and change. This past month the Breaking Walls family has come together again to spread love through the most widely ‘spoken’ language: music. We, the artists and mentors from every delegation, have achieved something wonderful and otherwise unthinkable thanks to the Breaking Walls community. From Morocco, Poland, Chile, the United States, South Africa, and Spain. We have been able to share our experiences and emotions of love. We have been working very thoughtfully to build a love song that represents and unites us all. I, as a Spanish artist in the Breaking Walls family, am always inspired and moved by the good, strong energy that flows between the different people from such different places. I am very grateful for having this safe space to not only get to know the others but to know myself. We all grow together as loving human beings and that is what we want to transmit in the song with our own voices, music, and this international collaboration.”

Good morning/evening everyone!

I am sure everybody’s having an unforgettable time with celebrations and so are we because we are launching our brand new video on TikTok! And we are so excited about it!
The idea came to me months ago, because I am a TikTok addict, and TikTok has been the hottest app over the past two years, and it is something different, easy to use, and fun! And I was like: why the hell still don’t we have a page?

And the Breaking Walls’ global family thought that my idea was great and supported it! Then we had to think about something for our first video, so I invited people from Breaking Walls to join me in this creation process and we came up with this very spontaneous fun idea that is based on introducing us — Breaking Walls to our potential TikTok audience!

We are beyond happy to start this very new chapter! And we still have many many things on our way.

Thank you!

Moha
CLICK HERE, PLEASE TO VIEW OUR TIKTOK VIDEO

I’m Mehdi a Breaking Walls artist from the Tangier delegation.

Breaking walls T-shirt and accessories online business came up to me when I was thinking, Breaking Walls gave me a lot of things, and then I was wondering, how can I give back?

Then I tried to be creative. I started combing my talents with some ideas I was inspired by in social media so then I came up with starting a T-shirt business. I was afraid at first to talk about it to our wonderful director Fran, but she was so open about it and she encouraged me to do it.

We started sharing ideas and we came up with adding artist’s inspiring work to our products and thankfully Claudia in Santiago and Mariam EW from my Tangier delegation agreed to help. I can’t express how happy I felt.

A special thanks to our director Fran and our Breaking Walls artists Mariam EW and Claudia for making my dream a reality.

I hope you like our designs and Breaking Walls “merch”!

Mehdi

My Experience Creating A PSA

Barcelona artist, Maria

In a world where we are all connected through the internet and social media, it seems easy to communicate with everyone. However, I sometimes find myself powerless when I see so much injustice but there’s nothing I can do. When Breaking Walls gave us the opportunity to create a PSA that changed. I was not only given the chance to change and improve what I was seeing through social media but they also gave me the means to speak up and to be heard. Creating this piece for an international youth organization such as Breaking Walls is a real honor due to the love, respect, and gratitude I have for their work.

In the development of the PSA I created together with my two colleagues, Fran and Oriol, I learned a lot about activism around the world. As part of the 2020 Virtual Artist Cooperative in August and representing the Barcelona delegation, we were asked to create a public service announcement over the theme “Fighting stigma, xenophobia, hate speech, racial discrimination, and domestic violence related to the COVID-19 and beyond”. This was included in the project for the Breaking Walls 2020 Creative Activist Lab where each delegation from every country chose a specific topic and had to create a video message, only one-minute long, to be distributed and played in each delegation’s major media channel. During the process, I got to know and understand the different problems young people go through and I also learned how to overcome or deal with issues such as discrimination, abuse, stigma, prejudgment, or xenophobia. I got a small insight into what the professional world is like, having to take care of the music, images, time restraints, and the words we were using. Personally, it felt really gratifying to express my concerns and to make people aware of “taboo” issues in order to help others.

I really hope that the passion with which we created our piece is reflected in it and that we are able to get to as many people as possible. I expect our PSA to really reflect what some people go through and that it is useful. If only one person gets inspired by my words, or our video opens someone’s eyes to the truth, that would be amazing.

Breaking Walls global family deeply cares about the well being, happiness, and inspiration of everyone our global family touches! Each of us is keenly aware of how profoundly Coronavirus hit everyone, everywhere, and the mutual struggles we share to remain healthy, safe, and happy during this crisis. 

Over these past months, Breaking Walls artists and community have faced almost unimaginable challenges and change. The Coronavirus threw Breaking Walls a huge curveball, convincing us to postpone our Bucharest Summit, our Community-Based Initiatives in Barcelona and Cape Town, and our In-School Workshop in Berlin. The Coronavirus lockdown even forced the NYCDOE to cancel our In-School Workshops midway. 

We pivoted to meet the moment because providing a steady, safe, and creative space during the turmoil of a pandemic, makes our work more important than ever to the artists and communities we touch. How? By hosting a totally virtual Artist Cooperative in August. Beautifully, this experience, and our deep determination to connect young people across the globe, was transformative for our artists and Breaking Walls.

Breaking Walls launched this ground-breaking program on August 11 and concluded on August 18. Twenty-six young artists from Barcelona, Brooklyn, Cape Town, Detroit, Santiago, Tangier, and Warsaw came together to passionately illustrate of Breaking Walls’ mantra connect * create * change.

Over the eight, two-and-one-half-hours sessions, our artists experienced Ensemble-Building; Creative Writing; Breaking-Out sessions with their chosen artistic discipline mentor; and, the creation of each individual artist’s video showcasing the transformation of their original writing. Simultaneously, our artists experienced our Rainbow Connect Conversation where their unique cultures and points-of-view were shared; as well as, the guidance of our Health & Wellness Ambassador on issues of building self-awareness, trust, and community in a virtual world.

As we look forward to 2021, we realize the great struggles ahead for Breaking Walls to continue to stay connected with the more than 1,350 young people we inspire through all of our programmings. 

Be assured that Breaking Walls remains steadfastly committed to maintaining our safe zone, emotionally, physically, and creatively for these amazing, intrepid young people and their import stories.

ONWARD, right? Into a new and brighter 2021.

INSHALLAH!

All my best,

BREAKING WALLS 2020 PEACE AND ACCEPTANCE STATEMENT                         ‘

ARCHITECTS OF CHANGE IN ONE VOICE’

We the Breaking Walls Artists and Ambassadors are a Global organization emerging as catalysts for change, through our creative writing and performance. Our foundation is based on the key values which include PEACE, COMFORT, ACCEPTANCE, and SOCIAL JUSTICE. We commit to relentlessly pursue the above values, with great attention given to equity, truth, and justice.

We are uncompromising when it comes to our objectives, expressed beautifully by Breaking Walls, which is to connect, create, and change. We explore and give platforms for self-understanding, as we have a goal for our different communities to accommodate and focus, primarily to individuals before we pursue the collective goal. Therefore, we learned that.

+ We must love ourselves, find our true selves, and accept all parts.

+ We are a family that is empowered to fight to make the world a better place.

+ Our voices must unveil the truth, serve justice, and make the dream of a world where equity rains reality.

+ We must understand our uniqueness and embrace our sense of belonging.

+ We must plant the seed of transition to equity, truth, and justice for our new tomorrow and be the birth of a supportive society that stands on pillars of peace.

+ Pledge to each other to be kind and accept each other for who we are stronger together, weaker divided.

+ Mistakes lead you a step closer to be a part of the change.

+ Be the best version of yourself, inspire others to be as beautiful as they want to be.

+ We must not undermine the power of unity. Let us all be committed to justice, equity, truth, and human dignity. 

Having found ourselves through creative writing and performance, we identify to the extent that we are similar yet different. We celebrate the diversity and the things we have in common. ”There is only one race and that is the human race.”  We reiterate that belief as it is the root of understanding, acceptance, and change.

Through the respect of human life, autonomy, protection of human dignity, and equality, we believe we can make the world a better place.

We draw inspiration from all who come before us. We will create, connect, and change, to develop the type of society we want.

We are optimistic that we will individually spread the love and advocate to become catalysts for change.

May peace on earth prevail,

The 2020 Breaking Walls Global Family

Today’s missive shares more insights into our BW impact on young people across the globe. It feels right to spread the word about the impact of our first Virtual Artist Cooperative as each of us struggles with the confusion, concern, and uncertainty facing us in this new, reinventing environment.

Here we go:

“By using my own inner thoughts and feelings as building blocks to create, I evoke an emotion of thought and awareness. Others are able to relate and not feel so alone.
Through Breaking Walls and all the amazing mentors and artists, through diversity, I have learned to stand with my people. We are not alone.

Breaking Walls teaches you to love and brace yourself with full capacity while striving for the best of what there is in this world, to work together to start a change. By working with our innermost self through creativity, an awareness arises as more and more people start to feel your emotions. By being personal there is depth in what you create.

When we are passionate about what we want, it is much more likely that we will make it happen. We are all in this together, why separate everyone with such ferocity? Are we not all striving for the same end goal of inner happiness?
Breaking Walls starts taking apart that wall one brick at a time to have a world of freedom and peace, happiness, and love.”

Senya, Cape Town artist

“Unexpected things are always beautiful!! ♥️ Unexpected year, Unexpected events, unexpected people !! That what made this year special!

Instead of a face to face summit in Romania, we did it virtually On zoom! To make our virtual performance of BEING THE LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS! It was actually difficult to imagine how it’s going to be, but Working as a family again, dreaming, spending beautiful moments, planning, having fun, supporting each other, we made it real. With making groups of talents from Storytelling to Spoken word to Dance to vocal, and it was actually surprising to Know that Some of us have talents that I’ve never expected! I was in love with what we do every morning, waking up to see their smiling faces and feel their energy.. .

Two weeks end.. . Last days of making the final touches on our videos and stories to send them to the world.

The awaited day comes, mixed feelings come; stress, happiness, energy, fear, excitement, enthusiasm.

Our live show started, we presented our performance feeling all the moments! Honestly it was an amazing event seeing everyone happy and proud of our work and finally achieve the goal of 2020 Cooperative, and that the pandemic hasn’t stopped us from doing what we do every year, from send our voices to the word and send our message! It was insane!

I know why I should be proud of being a Breaking Walls artist, of being a part of this big and beautiful family! Because I should be!

And because of what we do — connecting * creating  * and changing!! ❤️❤️

Hope to see my family growing up and shining again and meet them at the sooner chance ♥️♥️”

Imane, Tangier artist

“2020 has been the year of uncertainty. Each day something new and strange appeared and our lives were put upside down. And that made me feel afraid. I was afraid of things just coming to an end and just moving forward without them. And then an email arrived “Breaking Walls 2020 will be in zoom”. I can’t remember any other day when I’ve been as happy and relieved as I was that day. And then things started evolving and Breaking Walls 2020 started and even though it still was uncertain how things would be, everything was perfect. It felt like we were speaking side to side, not a virtual world, but a world we created in just the first day. And those days changed everything 2020 was being. A bad year? Not with Breaking Walls, not anymore.

And we did what we do: er connected in a virtual world, we created a world with our words, movements, songs, videos, and images and we changed the flow of what it was being the year of uncertainty. Not afraid of that anymore, accepting things and moving forward strongly!”

Fran, Barcelona artist