Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Peace Education
Since 2000, One Common Unity has trained over 9,000 teachers from around the country in peace education. These teachers work with the Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools and other educational organizations and institutions and educate over 9,000 youth a year. Throughout the year, OCU also hosts ongoing peace education workshops for children at S
asha Bruce, The Beacon House, the Harry Thomas Recreation Center, Wilson Senior High School, Girls Inc. Voices of a Movement & The Common Folk Awards
One Common Unity produces the monthly “Voices of a Movement,” open mic at Busboys and Poets located on 5th & K. Voices of a Movement promotes healthy dialogue around critical social issues while instigating reflection on how to build a nonviolent culture. In 2010, we produced a CD featuring artists from the Voices of a Movement shows of that year in celebration of our 10th anniversary. This CD was released at our “10 Year Anniversary Celebration and Showcase,” in conjunction with our third annual “Common Folk” awards, which celebrate the work of community organizers, artists using their music to uplift and nonprofits positively impacting at-risk communities. Media Projects
FLY BY LIGHT
In the summer of 2011, 15 high school students from diverse neighborhoods across Washington, DC were uprooted from the hustle of inner-city life to beautiful mountain vistas and springs. For many of the teenagers, this was their first time leaving the concrete confines of the city. It was also their first time experiencing a hike through the mountains, a swim in the creek, the feel of a sincere cry, the sound of their song through a microphone, the touch of a painful bee sting, the rush of fire spinning, and the smell of sage burning during a Native-American sweat lodge ceremony. It was a transformational week of boundary-stretching and social-emotional learning, reflecting the love, struggle, compassion, pain, laughter, and friendship of their daily lives. Directed by filmmaker Ellie Walton, the new documentary film follows the experience of a select group of youth who participated in this program facilitated by One Common Unity. flybylightthemovie.com
MLK STREETS PROJECT
Our youth film making program “A Nu View” finalized its second documentary film, which deals with the depressed states of Martin Luther King Boulevards across the nation. The trailer for the film was selected for and screened at the VONY Film Festival in New York City in 2010. A WEIGH WITH WORDS
A Weigh With Words is a blunt, no-holds barred investigation of the power of language, focusing on how words have been utilized to create both conflict and compassion. Interviewing pundits from academia, politics, the arts and the streets, the film unearths rare, candid glimpses of our struggles with appropriateness ignorance, connotation and contradiction. A Weigh With Words is the debut production of A Nu View, a special youth program produced by One Common Unity and Straight, No Chaser Productions. This film was created by six District of Columbia high school students who participated in every aspect of production.
