Previous events

 While most youth organizing programs function between the normal 9-5, our work is further strengthened by accessibility, in terms of hours of operation (3pm-11pm), location as well as the role of native leadership. Our chief organizing tool has been our three nights of expression, Thursday’s Poetry W/ Purpose, Friday’s 5 Elements of Hip-Hop and Saturday’s Cultural Engagement. These nights, in addition to providing a space to share in meaningful cultural and artistic experiences, also facilitate the development of critical dialogue and relationship building. Batey annually holds 144 youth cultural events per year averaging 25-50 youth per event. These numbers do not include the daily flow of students from our youth leadership and development trainings, tutoring program, technology and participatory democracy workshops.

One of several initiatives that help define Batey Urbano is the Batey Tech. This program has been created in an effort to fine-tune the academic and technological skills of our youth, while at the same time allowing for a generation to grow as successful critical thinkers We accomplish this by using our 5 R’s model to education (reading, researching, writing, recording and reciting) . Batey Tech takes place during fall and spring with an academic focus based on tutoring and educational enrichment, while in the summer the focus shifts to multi-media arts and project based learning through reading, writing, research, recording and reciting. The program involves youth in a variety of community organizing trainings, workshops, creative arts, multi media and technology classes. As part of this project the youth participate in four main media areas: print journalism, online radio, hip-hop/ poetry reading and writing and civic engagement/ community service. As a part of these workshops students, have created hip-hop/ poetry CDs, video projects, a publication highlighting youth alternatives in Humboldt Park, along with their own web pages and an interactive website. To view projects go to bateyurbano.org and click on Batey Tech.

The Batey has used a successful model of education through creative expression, fusing more traditional forms of poetry and spoken word, technology, and hip-hop to produce a host of CDs that focus on a variety of topics including: racism, math, science, and cultural memory. These CD projects have been youth-led with the students writing the lyrics, creating the music, and designing the compact disc cover and insert, as well as all of the promotional and marketing material.