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Ase' O community Arts & Wellness Education Program
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“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”
–
Ancestor Nelson Mandela
Community Care
Arts Integration
Legacy building
Each one, Teach one
Inquiry- based learning
Asé O Foundations
Empowerment
Cultural Awareness
Wholistic Development
About Asé O
Asé O: Descendants of Roots & Legacy is Sweet Herbal Honey Apothecary's Community Art and Wellness program that grounds itself in integrational bridging, inquiry-based learning, and the full-person approach to learning. Our program centers on wellness, arts integration, literacy, and social-emotional through the lens of life. Asé O supports organizations, participating students, and creators interested in teaching their field of focus, creatively and with collective legacy at the forefront. Our program supports organizations, families, and individuals through teaching, coaching, and building integrative curriculums that expand our awareness about ourselves and the world(s) we experience.
Our entry point to collective legacy building and creative-based wellness centers in the traditional framework of each one, teach one mindset that investigates our role(s) in collective liberation. Asé O's approach to education builds and nourishes a sustaining foundation that uses creativity for expression, activism, community empowerment, emotional awareness, identity exploration, entrepreneurship, equitability, solution building, interpersonal development, and an understanding of systemic gaps that lead to community separation.
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Introduction to Natural Dyeing & Painting Workshop:
"Mural to our Ancestors"
Partnership with Abundant Beginnings Freedom Forest School
Oakland, CA
Introduction to Natural Dyeing & Painting Workshop:
In partnership with Lion Creek Apartments || Teen Creative Camp
Oakland, CA
Our mission is to use creativity to expand minds and unveil new pathways that support individuals learning abilities, creative passions, careers, and potential teaching interests that welcome new ways to use their natural gifts and interest(s). This support in expansion and imagination brings forth the necessary tools that uplift healthy minds, expand hearts, and cultivate a brighter intergenerational future.
Asé O centers the exploration of life through the lens of creative practice that gives participants the nurturing space to explore and practice the research, discovery application, and radical action of using a creative expression for unpacking trauma and intergenerational patterns while embracing new perspectives of healing, personal fulfillment, global liberation, and social change.
This discovery constructs through the lens of the Socio-Ecological Model and Social Change Ecosystem of understanding our part in collective social change.
Through this program, we will use the creative expression that uplifts leadership, public speaking, resume and skill building, literacy, business mapping, and discovering our creative voice. We will use the discovery of the language in our everyday experiences that introduce technical, traditional, cultural, and ancestral contexts to understanding and unpacking the world through our stories.
The program can present itself as a series of classes, camps, one-day classes, community workshops, mindfulness practices, community artist teaching residency, and creative field trips that expose youth and adults to various forms of culture.
We will explore these realms through emotional, historical, socio-political, global, and internal awareness that highlights the need for effective learning through fostering fun and innovative environments while incorporating integrative processes of subject-life learning through the arts.
Through Jaee’s experiences of being Dyslexic and coming to this awareness as an adult, they’ve had to discover their approach to learning that supported them within and beyond the classroom. These discoveries naturally formed through creative practice where beat making, visual + word-based flashcards, games, cooking, stepping, calendars, schedules, vision boards, maps, and creative writing supported their process. Using these practices of memorization, repetition, and comfort -- allowed them to break down their ways of understanding subjects and the world around them.
Story
Over the years, this form of consistency in understanding their own learning style(s) and approaches to education and life, both professionally and personally. These approaches brought extreme confidence levels, organizational skills, personal power, creation building, and a wholistic understanding. These approaches now naturally flow in all areas of their life and support them in building a better relationship with themselves and their creative solution-based thinking. Due to this, Jaee has approached their teaching through the lens of catering to all learning styles and developing creatively inquiry-based curriculums and lessons that fit each person so that everyone participant feels seen and heard.
Through this program, we support each person in finding what comes most naturally for them and that guides them in and beyond the classroom. This support happens through learning life and technical skills that welcomes self and community understanding.
Ase’O enacts through Jaee Sumter, as an Arts Integration educator, consultant, and coach. This enactment presents itself through Jaee building and teaching the Ase’O curriculum in collaboration with schools, organizations, homeschools, and community spaces. Jaee has worked in and with many educational sectors throughout their teaching career. Their experiences with diverse educational environments and roles have furthered Jaee's teaching practice towards Arts Integration which welcomes learning through an inclusive creative multi-learning lens.
Through the Ase’O program, Jaee also offers 1:1 coaching for teachers in integrating these approaches into their lessons and classroom management. Through this program, we welcome space for field trips that affirms self, community, and global awareness the community. Our goal is to begin providing financial opportunities for creators to become community teaching artists that support community creative artivism projects and that center on storytelling, truth, pain, joy, justice, self-understanding, problem-solving, and emotional intelligence. We use this to celebrate ourselves in all fields.
Approaches
1. Multi-subject learning and teaching with Arts Intergration lens
2. Self-Inquiry through Technique based Visual Art
3. Artivism through Literacy & Arts
4. Community Art: Introduction to Community
The program and curriculum include three approaches:
(Kindergarten to Adults)
Participants connection with the local community. Lessons that center on collaboration with local businesses and creators. Mentorships with businesses and creators in desired fields.
Includes
- Lessons for English for Second language learners
- Highlights 100 books from POC authors
- Community based lesson plans
- Printable worksheets
- Run of Shows for trips and art show
- Student examples
- Syllabus samples and artist studies
- Arts-literacy based homework
- Adult workshops
The curriculum includes:
(Kindergarten to Adults)
Janae' "Jaee" Sumter developed the Ase' O curriculum through their teaching and community organizing experience working with grades K-12 and adults in traditional and non-traditional educational environments; these environments include charter, colleges, public, private, alternative centers, shelters, nonprofits, gardens, international schools, and virtual classes.
Additionally, through this program, we use these approaches to continue the collective mission of ending internal and external cycles of oppression. We use creative practice that encourages and centers mental liberation, legacy building, sustainability, integration, generational wealth, skill discovery, SEL support, cultural celebration, and business through the lens of the Socio-Ecological Model and Social Change Ecosystem.
Please Email aseo.sweetherbalhoney@gmail.com to bring our program into your space. We will work together to build a suitable series, community workshop or one-time lesson that fits best with your organization or home.
Program Overview:
Creative practice can be witnessed and expressed as an application of human creative skill and imagination. It challenges, questions, and celebrates matters of the world and yourself within it. The Ase' O program centers the exploration of life through the lens of creative practice. Participants will explore and practice the research, application, discovery, and radical act of using art as an expressive tool for creativity, resilience, personal fulfillment, empowerment, liberation, and social change.
This will be guided through THREE main components:
Introduction to Creative Healing Arts
Wholism, Wellness, Community Mindfulness
Personal, Social & Global Awareness
Introduction to Creative Healing Arts
Participants will get their feet wet as we explore and become exposed to the world through the lens of arts. They will learn new and experimental practices and techniques. These practices will move within the technical and self-inquiry realm that caters to the participant's interests through everyday exploring practices for learning. This exploration can assist participants in discovering their interests through project learning that supports their personal, business, and creative endeavors. This method can present itself through basic gardening, herbal medicine, writing, drawing, public speaking, photography, curating, cooking, natural dyeing, banner making, flyer design, community murals, product design, website design, farming, mapping, hair braiding, and more.
Programming will cater to each environment and may differ in approach depending on the partnership. Through this, we will include lessons that incorporate the basis of Elements of Art through the lens of practicality, activism, healing arts, and everyday life experiences. As we use projects to further our understanding, we will use books, writings, trips, and historical research to connect our experiences with past and present community leaders to learn how they strive despite their experiences. Participants will explore what they've learned and use art to unpack stereotypes, theories, isms, phobias, doubts, and inner child wounds that they've experienced.
Elements of Art: Texture, Line, Shape, Color, Space, Form, Pattern, Sense and how they apply practically everyday life.
Wholism, Wellness, Community Mindfulness
Participants will have guest speakers, local artists, and businesses share techniques and knowledge of interest. They will have the chance to do parent-student art projects, work with their local communities and learn about other practices that spark their interests beyond art. Participants will learn wellness practices such as managing emotions, understanding boundaries, consent, community building, and collaboration. They will also explore murals, meditation, intentional breathing, art walks, music, creative writing, movement/improvisation, and integrating practices (plant dyeing, weaving, collage, mindfulness, and cultural arts). Lessons will center on collaborations with local business and creators that allows intentional connection for students to learn more about their neighborhood and all it has to offer.
Participants will also learn entrepreneurship and curation methods through the lens of creatives as business owners, which allows students to host craft markets, learn about money management, flyer, and website design and create their logo and business cards that support them to use their passions for business and personal fun (at that current age level).
The creative lens includes: Reflections, questions, writing prompts, share and tell, possible internships, ancestral connection, socio-emotional connection, and team building. Students will organize and participate in student-driven local community projects: markets, drives, shows, performances, etc.
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Personal, Social & Global Awareness
Participants will learn creative practices from a global perspective. These practices include dancing, public speaking, and storytelling. We will explore ranges that support participants in exploring and challenging the world through storytelling, reflection, cultural arts, and traditions. We will have the chance to make tangible connections between historical, global, and socio-emotional learning. Participants will also dive deeper into their understanding of community art, creatively based critical thinking, self-reflection, and artistic exploration. Participants will also begin to explore their creative voice as they learn ways of unpacking socio-economic injustice as it relates to them, their communities, and the world at large. This section will also provide students with an overview of accessible forms of art from movements like Gees Bend, Seneca Village Stone Wall, Black Arts Movement, Harlem Renaissance, Global Artivism, Ancient Arts like Chinese, African, Egyptian, and Mexican, cultural traditions, deemed taboos, activism, and storytelling.
Creative Practices offered, but not limited to:
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Meditation: Exploring creative forms that assist during stressful, triggering, and traumatic moments)
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Art Making: Coloring, sculpture, group, and community installations/murals)
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Cultural awareness: Hair braiding, ancestor altars, quilts, etc.
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Movement: Dance, step, improvisation, intuitive
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Community connection: Photography, gallery visits, art walks, community volunteering, donation drives
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Accessibility & Environment: Herbs, Food, and spice learning dyeing with kitchen ingredients
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Group & Team Building: Peer conversations, circles, group activities
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Journaling: Creative writing, poetry, streams of flow, share and tells.
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Creative Visioning: Dream boards, envisioning our dreams, learning how to bring them to life step by step, and manifesting, the law of attraction, organizational skills
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Techniques for Stress and Emotional Understanding: Salt baths, planting, gardening, cooking, scrapbooking, affirmation making)
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Creative Business & Portfolio Building: (Banner making, fabrics, flower printing, flyer design, website design, product photography, support in interests)
The program is intertwined through:
1. Teaching: Partnering with the program to bring the Ase’ O curriculum into schools, institutions, and community spaces and teaching our curriculum and this program within organizations and community spaces. Jaee supports as a coach or consultant for current school teachers, homeschool educators, organizers, and creators inspired to teach in their community(s).
2. Partnerships: A Liaison and Connector in bridging organizations, schools, artists, and practitioners together through subject and life-based programming. For partnerships, creators can bring their creative practice into educational and non-education spaces that support the student process from a holistic viewpoint that helps them to apply that to practice through a showcase. Showcases can come in the form of an open mic, performance, art show, zines, published book, TV show, queer monologues, fashion shows, collective published book, cooking show, documentary, or any desired creative project.
3. Field trips & Community Volunteering: Students can experience community-centered creative field trips in and beyond their local communities. Volunteering provides students with awareness and tools that support them in learning potential outlets they can give back to their communities.
Partnerships and agreements:
Programming lengths depend on the age group and partnership with the potential organization, collective or individual. Program lengths can range from a one-time workshop or ongoing sessions that are weekly, biweekly, monthly, permanent, or for a longer duration. All sessions will include various modalities such as small projects, independent research, material-based experiments, relationship-building exercises, meditation, creative writing, art making, movement, and interests.
Long-period or series-based classes will lead to a collective manifestation that will end the term or project. This manifestation ranges between art exhibitions, fashion shows, murals, installations, poetry books (individual and class), dance performances, showcases, documenting, archiving, donation drives, community volunteer events, markets, cooking competitions, and beyond.
Incorporating the arts and activism as a way of living is vital in our generational integration because the power of people changes the world. We deserve to be creative and dream big, knowing that dreams can actualize. Educational partnerships with schools and organizations allow Jaee to work with you to build a lens of our curriculum that fits the needs of your existing program and wants. This method welcomes opportunities for exploring an integrative approach to holistic learning in our schools and communities. We also welcome space for potential volunteer opportunities, internships, mentorships, and employment opportunities that connect participants with local businesses based on skill level and interests.
Adult Programming:
Adult programming comes in the form of workshops. Like youth classes, we use inquiry-based creative practice to support each other, build connections, exchange knowledge, and co-work with other creators.
Programming for adults
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Adult nature walks for learning about plant species and exercise.
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Journaling
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connecting with like-minded individuals
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Game nights & Art Walks
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Creative-based retreats for co-working, skill building, fun, rest, and knowledge exchanging
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Literacy and skill-based workshops
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Adult dialogue and arts-based workshops. (Unpacks the collective processes of systemic and systematic oppression and how that continues to play a significant role in our lives, homes, communities, and the world at large.
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Roundtable talks for community building and resolution cultivation.
Accessibility through the Arts: (Aboard & U.S)
Workshops & Projects:
Using our surroundings of natural resources to create sustainable projects that document our stories through archiving, and rebuilding structures.
DIY Art Tools & Art Kits:
Journals, sketch & coloring books, reading books, natural paints from produce and mud, clothing designs using flowers and herbs
Storytelling, Legacy & Empowerment:
Support with sustainable ways of working as a community through healing arts to empower and inspire through collaboration and discovering natural gifts for resourcefulness and traditions.
Rebuilding structures through natural resources: (Soon to come)
Naturally based materials--Mud and Cobb homes. Building effort-based homes for the shelterless. Including buildings such as schoolhouses, shops, businesses, banks, community libraries, and physical archives from local community stories and experiences.
Arts education:
Cultural Arts and Empowerment
Teaching Integration of English & Art (using Ase' O curriculum)
Skill building:
Photography, editing, entrepreneurship, creative business approach.
Marketing:
Connecting communities aboard. Selling creative work between countries. Supporting low-access communities in countries experiencing severe poverty. Providing opportunities for rebuilding, celebration, art, sustainability, connection
Community Collaboration:
Partner with local creators and businesses to provide youth and adult participants with work opportunities, internships, or mentorships. Programming that centers community involvement guides the community and shows them the powerful beauty in their neighborhood and culture. The form of opportunities is contingent on the interests of the student.
All programming can be physical or virtual based on a community client-partnership agreement.
For physical projects: Jaee will travel to your community and home country to spend a duration of agreed time to support you, your community, or the organization. All agreed-upon partnerships are based on your needs, asks, goals, and what Jaee can tangibly offer.
As a person who loves learning from and with community, Jaee will spend time immersed in your community and learn from and with you as the both of you develop and execute aligned programming together. Jaee is here to not only support you, but to also learn from you in the process as a community.
International Projects:
Duration time for projects 1-6 months
United States Projects:
Single day up to 2 months (if residing in the city for longer programming.
*Collaborating with community-based creators with actualizing particular projects (i.e. construction builders, welders, etc...)
Traditional:
Educational settings includes, but no limited to
Public, Charter, International, Alternative Schools: Elementary, Middle, High School, Alternative Centers and Colleges
Nontraditional: Organizations include, but not limited to
Shelters, Nonprofits, Community businesses, libraries, bookstores, Incubators, Healing spiritual centers, Senior centers
when you learn, TEACH.
when you get, GIVE.
-
Ancestor Maya Angelou
Teaching Portfolio
