Strategy: Culture

Chocolate Nutcracker

Chocolate Nutcracker will utilize the classical “Nutcracker” as a springboard to create a fresh, local interpretation of the iconic ballet.  Directed by Norma Jean Barnes an African-American and intergenerational cast will celebrate the Nutcracker, Black and world culture with the purpose of building bridges of hope, love and compassion in Pittsburgh and the world!  Auditions, rehearsal and performances (live and virtual) will take place The Pittsburgh Project on Pittsburgh’s Northside.

Donate HERE

Yoga Recovery Pittsburgh Start Up Funding

Mission and Vision
Yoga Recovery Pittsburgh, founded in 2022, provides recovery services for those seeking relief from addiction, mental health challenges, and spiritual imbalances. Yoga Recovery Pittsburgh is committed to healing through natural methodologies and supporting your journey through compassionate care.

Relapse Prevention Group (Y12SR)
Group Therapy is a wonderful way to connect like minds together in collective support of your healthier future. Yoga Recovery Pittsburgh is an affiliate of Y12SR, a program that combines the fundamentals of the 12-step method with trauma healing, cognitive reprogramming, and the art and science of yoga.
Reiki
Reiki is an energetic healing regimen that rebalances the body, mind, and spirit. It is a beautiful complement to yoga as a discipline, and has profound effects on mental health. Reiki mitigates withdrawal symptoms, assists with chronic illness, and relieves trauma and stress.
Recovery Retreats
For more intensive, community-based programming based in alternative healing methods, consider a weekend getaway to set intentions and make concrete plans for your recovery journey.

 

Boom & Bust

Watch as seven residents of western PA travel to the Gulf Coast region to explore what it looks like to live alongside a petrochemical plant. Take a journey along with them as they ask the hard questions and wrestle with the complex history of our past and issues facing Beaver County’s future.

Boom & Bust is produced by RiverWise, in association with New Sun Rising and the Genesis Collective, and created by filmmaker Christopher Padgett of Human City Creative. The project is completely self-organized and self-funded.

Many local community and environmental organizations play an important role in helping residents become more informed and inspired about the public health impacts of industry. While these efforts are very important, the Boom & Bust film was not conceived primarily as a public health, environmental science, or activist project. The goal of the film was to travel to Louisiana, witness what people were experiencing, and to share reflections on what we learned.  During the screening events we will capture audience feedback in order to strengthen community connections and mobilize citizen action.

 

Watch the Trailer

Read the FAQs

Share Community Feedback

 

Screening Schedule

Thursday, July 28th, 2022 at 7 pm 

Iron Horse Theater, 348 Maplewood Ave, Ambridge, PA 15003

 

Monday, August 8th, 2022 at 7 pm

Virtual Screening via Zoom, Register for the August 8th event

A conversation will be held after this screening for those who wish to participate.

 

Wednesday, August 10th, 2022 at 7 pm

The Tull Family Theater, 418 Walnut St., Sewickley, PA 15143, Register for the August 10th event

Concessions will be available for purchase from the Tull Theater during the screening. 

Drinks and conversation are scheduled at the conclusion of this screening for those who wish to participate.

 

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2022 at 7 pm

Phipps Conservatory – Botany Hall, 1 Schenley Dr., Pittsburgh, PA 15213, Register for the August 23rd event

Drinks and a conversation are scheduled at the conclusion of this screening for those who wish to participate.

 

 

This project is inspired by

strengthening community movement by challenging prevailing narratives

Anthropology of Motherhood

Since 2016, Anthropology of Motherhood has provided ongoing curation of artwork and design that engages in the complex visual, material, emotional, corporeal and lived experiences of motherhood, care-giving, parenting, nurturing and maternal labor. As an annual hybrid amenity/exhibit at the Three Rivers Arts Festival, our message and aesthetic of the Culture of Care has reached thousands of viewers, instilling the value of caregivers and the importance of prioritizing compassion and care in our daily lives. Our exhibits have traveled to McDonough Museum of Art, Sleeth Gallery and will be exhibiting at Dyers Art Center in Rochester, NY in 2023. With support from the Opportunity Fund (Pittsburgh) and in collaboration with the City of Asylum, we recently concluded our speaker series, Culture of Care inviting artist-caregivers from around the world to share where caregiving and receiving intersects with their practice.

We are excited to announce a partnership with Amherst College Press to develop a full color edited volume of Anthropology of Motherhood with an expected publish date of Fall 2026, in time for our 10th year anniversary.Your generous support will allow us to continue our work through exhibits, programs, and our upcoming book.

Thank you.

Gallery Closed Season 2

Gallery Closed is a unique public-facing experimental art space in Troy Hill, Pittsburgh, run by artists Phillip Andrew Lewis and Lenka Clayton. Conceived during the pandemic, the gallery is designed to be permanently “closed”, yet at the same time continuously open.

All exhibited work can only be viewed through two street-facing windows, the door always remains closed. At night the gallery is brightly lit, so that artwork is visible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Gallery Closed is for everyone and specifically embraces its accidental audience of neighborhood passers-by.

Gallery Closed’s first season featured the work of 27 internationally renowned artists including Philip Glass, widely regarded as one of the most influential living musical composers, photographer and MacArthur fellow Deborah Willis, and Pulitzer Prize winning artist Raven Chacon.

We are now fundraising to commission site-specific solo exhibitions by four artists/artist teams for Gallery Closed Season Two.

Donate Here

YogaRoots On Location Certified Yoga Teacher Training

YogaRoots On Location, LLC® leads embodied antiracist organizing through Raja yoga. 

We aim to meet people where they are and offer AntiRacist professional development, integrative group and individual yoga classes, and Certified AntiRacist Raja Yoga Teacher Training across the country. Collective liberation is our path to healing. It is our dream to recognize our humanity and find the courage to end systems of racism, patriarchy, and capitalism, together. 

We see Integrative Raja Yoga as a path to do so.

Yoga Teacher Training –  Teaching yoga through a social justice framework. 

YogaRoots On Location ® Certified Yoga Teacher Training is an antiracist and social justice yoga teacher training offered through the Yoga Alliance’s 200-hour Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT) Certification. This year-long training integrates systems-based and trauma-informed frameworks with the Raja Yoga 8-Limbed Path practices of behavioral observances and restraints, movement, breath awareness, sensory awareness, concentration, meditation, and divine purpose while centering Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.

Our Need

YROL curates spaces for folks to vulnerably share and explore the impact of systemic and internalized oppression. We teach the Raja Yoga path as a way to sustain this work. YROL is seeking fiscal sponsorship to pursue grant funding that will offset Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) tuition and Continuing Education costs for adults and youth of the Global Majority and those facing financial barriers to pursuing YTT.

Peeling Back the Layers

Peeling Back the Layers is an immersive event series exploring the complexity and beauty of our world through cultural expression and dialogue. Events are intimate, interactive, and hosted at the Purple Onion:  a new experimental performance space at New Sun Rising’s Millvale Food + Energy Hub. Attendance is by invitation and guests are encouraged to share their own stories and experiences (on) the theme for evening. This event series is produced in partnership with New Sun Rising’s Power in Numbers: data + creative advocacy initiative.

(on Land)

March 5, 2022 with special guests Ben Barson & the Peeling Back the Layers Band, Janet Zipf of Back to Earth Healing Center, and Grounded Strategies.

 

Birth Your Way

Birth Your Way exists to connect expecting parents to community resources to support and educate expecting parents of their options to having a healthy and successful pregnancy and delivery. 

To further support Black and Minority maternal health, Birth Your Way is fundraising to provide scholarships for Black midwives in Pittsburgh. The scholarship covers tuition fees for Black women to attend Commonsense Childbirth School of Midwifery, a Black midwife college designed to enable students to gain the knowledge and skills needed to become highly competent midwives. We are asking community members, partners, and leaders to invest in the future of Black birth and make this dream a reality.

The 2019 Pittsburgh Gender Equality Report revealed that Black women’s maternal mortality rate is higher in Pittsburgh than in 97% of similar cities. Black birthing women are dying from complications that are 60% preventative compared to white counterparts. Unfortunately, in a city with merits for being medically advanced with superior health care systems, Black birthing women are not reaping the benefit of being residents in the most livable city.  Pittsburgh is rated as one of the worst cities for Black women to give birth. 

Racism, blatant, passive-aggressive, microaggressions, and complicit biases directly correlate between Black women and infants dying or surviving. Since the Gender Equality release, many organizations have attempted to combat these statistics with new doula community programs, town hall meetings, and other services created to address this national health crisis.

#TOYZSTEAM Dah-Varsity Scholars

#TOYZSTEAM Dah-Varsity Scholars is a fiscally sponsored program focused on increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) creator industry.

We also foster entrepreneurship, and improve economic mobility in disadvantaged populations, by empowering people to be the superhero version of themselves, through training and multi-generational mentorship.

We have created a virtual adult workforce training course with the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC), providing students with laptops, internet access, and hardware, along with books and materials.

These students use our Dah-Varsity app, our anti-bullying song created with the music department at Carnegie Mellon University, “Stop The Bullying,” along with our teaching materials, to deliver STEAM programming to middle school and high school students, in an after-school setting.

Our program uses digital storytelling, 3D modeling, game design, coding, audio production, music, and entrepreneurship to teach students how to create, sell, and tell their stories through designing and manufacturing superhero toys.

WIN-Spirations

Our purpose is to reduce poverty and build gender equity by providing networking, professional mentoring, and education to women experiencing economic hardship.

PARTICIPANTS: WIN will connect participants with an individual in the desired field to offer advice and assistance as it relates to personal and professional growth. Participants will receive a minimum of 1-year support and connection to professional experts in the areas of business and career mentoring, resume review and writing services, personal finance education and support, education about homeownership, and assistance in locating relevant resources such as insurance, professional attire, along with services such as career advancement opportunities.

All projects are charitable in nature and fall in line with section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status for our sponsors, donors, and grantors.

Flourish Ed

Flourish Ed is a fiscally sponsored educational outreach program in collaboration with the founders of Strong Ambitious Women, Kind-R-Garden and The Pittsburgh Village Project.

The mission of this program is to develop and implement a framework  for conscious teaching and learning in a post pandemic world. We reimagine the present by nourishing a positive self and community image in support of a flourishing future. Through focusing on soft skills and creative resilience, students grow as meaningful contributors and impactful leaders whose radiance promotes the growth of their communities.

Our goal is to reimagine education to be authentic. We aim to empower learners to be creative contributors through a focus on social and emotional wellness and project-based learning, while nourishing a positive self and community image. By cultivating leadership, learners will be active participants in engaging and empowering their social circles to be positive catalysts for change.