Today we’d like to introduce you to Freedom Arts & Education Center.
Hi Freedom Arts, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Freedom Arts started in 2012 when a group of people started talking about bringing the arts and education back to the community. They wanted to make a difference in St. Louis by bringing arts, tutoring, and opportunities to young people living in neighborhoods that most people don’t care about. Most of us have been here since the beginning. We were 5, 6, and 7 years old when it started, and along the way, a lot of our younger brothers and sisters joined when they got old enough, and our friends too. Now we’re older and know a lot more, and are still reaching out to more kids and younger kids. We got to where we are through good partnerships with schools and the community, and making sure we care about our relationships.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
The road has been anything but smooth. We’ve had some potholes, literally! We’ve been through at least 5 different cars, like that old Jeep that kept breaking down. We have had challenges along the way but nobody can keep us down. We’ve been in 5 different buildings in different states of repair since we started. In 2018 we suddenly had to find a new building because the guy who owned our own building kicked us out and closed it down. We were mad about it, but we stuck together, trusted God, and made it to a better place. Covid has also been an obstacle but we make sure to stay safe all the time. Freedom Arts is stronger than any struggle we face. It’s an important group of people that can make any place home, and it provides an outlet for youth to truly be ourselves. It opens our eyes to issues in our city like education inequality and social injustices, and we learn how to overcome them and beat them. Without Freedom Arts, some of us would have dropped out of school. The future matters and Freedom Arts help accepts young people and prepare us in a way that helps us finesse a harsh world and get new opportunities to expand our horizons.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We are a multidisciplinary arts squad, with young and established artists, who create a safe space where we can grow, learn, and create. We make music and poetry, visual art, and dance. We have a drumline, do animation, and we build things. And we teach a lot of other people how to do all these art forms through our workshops. One thing we do is make murals for people and businesses. We also have our own studio to make music. We even learn how to ride and fix bikes. We get commissions from people, contracts to teach and put on performances, and organize community events. We do all of this to try and make the world a better place by investing in the future, and the future is the youth.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Our creativity and the power of our art and relationships keeps this team together. Our teachers and mentors care about us, never give up on us, and stick with us through all of life’s changes. They’ve been there for us since we were little. This is really important to our success. They always make sure we have what we need, like food, laptops, school and art supplies, and a safe, relaxing place to do our work. We learn how to never give up and reach our goals. We accept each other and help each other. We also learn things at Freedom Arts that we don’t in other places, like about Angela Davis and Fannie Lou Hamer, and graffiti art and poetry. We get job opportunities too and get paid to come to Freedom Arts to do projects and get our school work done. The mission keeps us together and will keep empowering the youth through arts and breaking generational curses.
Contact Info:
- Email: info@FAECSTL.org
- Website: https://faecstl.org/
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Image Credits
FAEC Staff & Scholars
