Photo: Davis Sánchez | Pexels
Less than half of young African Americans between the ages of 18-25 receive treatment for "serious mental illness". To help destigmatize mental health in Black and Brown youth, hip-hop artist and mental health advocate Archie Green founded a non-profit organization in Cleveland that uses hip-hop as a therapy tool. The 10-week program offers a safe space for kids to create their own original music as a way to open up pathways for communities in need of mental health resources. Music in this way serves as a vehicle to ask, 'Hey, when you were feeling this way, what is a way to manage that emotion?' and allows for creative output from a place of vulnerability. “A lot of times Black youth are ignored. They want to feel validated, they want to feel heard,” said Green. One of the organization's 19 year old members affirms: “Everything we speak of is from the heart and from the soul.”
|
|
More:
