Support Humanities Amped this Giving Tuesday!

Hello Amped Community,
 
It is the season of giving thanks, and our family at Humanities Amped is filled with gratitude for the generosity of your support. Thank you for believing in the talent, creativity, and value of our youth. 
 
As 2022 is rapidly drawing to a close, we are excited to share with all of you some of our highlights from this past year. With many of our programs in full swing at Tara High School, we also want to share an overview of our programs and some of the successes we’ve achieved. While there have been many challenges over this past year, great things happen when youth voices are elevated! Please check out the impact and programming report here to learn about what we’ve been up to. 
 
Thank you for being on this journey with us, and we hope that we can continue to count on your support this Giving Tuesday!
 
Sincerely,
 
The Team at Humanities Amped

Humanities Amped Impact and Programming Report

The Humanities Amped mission is to model and share transformative educational practices that result in people’s power to shape their world. Our vision is to create a dynamic community of life-long learners and innovative civic leaders.

Humanities Amped provides high school classrooms, after school, and lunchtime programs with research-based practices that help youth experience belonging, well-being, and the power of their own voices. When youth have guided opportunities to practice community-engaged writing, research, and arts, they are able to aspire and amplify possibilities for themselves and the people around them.

"Humanities Amped put me in rooms I never thought I’d be in, and gave me the tools to make the difference in the world that I never thought I’d be the one to make, tools that I still use to this day.” -Amped Alum

"I love Humanities Amped soo much, like it's the reason why I be excited to come to school."  ​-Amped Student

Financial Report

Humanities Amped By the Numbers

• 300 students participated in twelve sections of Amplified ELA Classes
• 224 students attended Amped Lunches
• 60 students enrolled in Amped Studio Afterschool/Summer Programs
• 51 community care conferences supported students with unique needs
• 15 students received leadership and restorative practices training

Program Profiles

AMPED AFTERSCHOOL, SUMMER, AND LUNCHTIME PROGRAMS

"Humanities Amped teaches us how to use our voice and get out of our comfort zone [while] respecting other people’s differences, [we learn] how to use our minds to create solutions to major problems.” -YALL Member

Humanities Amped was like the hole in my life that was finally filled. I am a very anxious person. Humanities Amped encouraged communication in a way that was not at all forceful. This made me wanna talk to people, and surprisingly I made friends.” -Amped Studio Participant

Amped Studio

Students participate in an arts and civic engagement club where they research a civic issue they are passionate about and use the recording arts, visual arts, or performing/literary arts to raise their voices for social change.

Amplified Lunches

Students participate in activities during school lunches that promote joy, connection, and a sense of belonging on campus.

Youth Apprentice Leadrship League (YALL)

Student leaders receive training in restorative practices and implement peer-to-peer programming, resulting in positive impacts on school climate and culture.

Program Spotlight
Arts-Based Civic Engagement Project: "I Am Not My Mental Health"

Students that participated in the 2022 Amped Summer program were able to identify communities they are a part of, issues that harm that community, and research possible solutions to eliminate those issues. They then worked on an art project to present in front of a public audience.
Amped students Maia, Trinity, and Tristan tackled the lack of access to mental health care by conducting research on the stigma that comes with acknowledging mental health challenges. They adapted their research into a video that consisted of peer interviews, dramatic skits, and poetry readings.
Their work to remind us that we are “not our mental health” has impacted not only our family and friends at Humanities Amped, but many others.
Mental Health Awareness at Together Baton Rouge Following our summer program, Tristan interned at Together Baton Rouge while participating in the Mayor’s Youth Workforce Experience and was able to take the project he co-created to the next level by presenting it to the Baton Rouge community.

Excerpt From "I Am Not My Mental Health"

No I am not my mental health
The bed was calling my name for multiple days in a row People would ask what’s wrong and
I’d reply I don’t know
But deep down in my soul
I knew something was wrong...
-Maia

Amplified English Language ARts Classrooms

“It's not about what we learned, it was about how we learned and how we did different things and how we use those techniques later in life. Every single thing that I learned in Amped I'm using at [my job], I'm using in life." -Amped Classroom Alum

100% of Spanish-speaking student participants agreed or strongly agreed that Humanities Amped volunteers “helped class to feel like a place where everyone can learn.” ​

Amplified Classroom Residencies

Amped resident educators partner within high school class sections to offer regular planning and co-teaching support that models effective strategies for trauma-informed student engagement, project-based learning, and culturally responsive teaching.

Educator Professional Development

In addition to embedding professional development by modeling strategies directly with students in classrooms, Amped offers coaching to support teachers with a cycle of reflection, planning, and implementation.

ADELANTE VOLUNTEERS: SUPPORT FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

Amped coordinates Spanish speaking volunteers to offer small group assistance to English language learners in ELA classrooms. Volunteers and educators are trained to create a welcoming, warm space for English Learners to achieve new social and academic horizons.

Community Engagement

"[The current youth are] seeing us do these things. Being close in age with them, and they're like ‘I can do that too.’ It shows all the possibilities that they have, especially as us being young Black women in the classroom full of like faces. I definitely see the influence that we have on them.” -Amped Alumni ​

“After leaving some Humanities Amped events, it made me, as an adult, change my way of thinking. I saw that I didn’t have to think in the same way that people before me was thinking.” -Amped Parent

Amped Alumni Scholarships

Amped employs two college-aged alumni as part- time program staff to support classroom and afterschool programs. In addition to working at Humanities Amped, these staff receive an annual merit-based scholarship of $5,000 to assist with living expenses while in college.

Amped Extended Family

This community-based group provides a gathering ground for youth and alumni to build connections and ask, “how can we create well-being in our community?” This peer and near-peer group receives training in research-based strategies and re-delivers what they learn to their networks.

Family Table Gatherings

Amped sets the table every other month for family, community, youth, and partners to gather and share food, connection, and the spirit of fellowship with one another.

Together, we embody the spirit of Ubuntu, “I am because we are.”

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Thank YOU for supporting the next generation of community leaders!

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What's New at Humanities Amped

Adelante Volunteer Sign Up!
We are looking for dual-language (Spanish or Arabic) volunteers to support English learners during the spring semester at Tara High School. Sign up here!