Posted November 26 2019
2019 marks the 10th year of Prairie’s New Voices high school service learning program for students and organizations in Greater Cincinnati. See how it all started in 2009.
Prairie started with the mission of bringing peaceful and thoughtful deliberation to difficult issues in the Cincinnati community through the lens of the camera and through the eyes of engaged students working side by side with their partners; community members seeking to overcome dependent or marginalized circumstances.
The issue on hand in the first run of New Voices back in 2009 was how the move of SCPA to its new site adjacent to the Drop Inn Center (the largest homeless shelter in Cincinnati) would impact the lives of students and residents of the Drop Inn Center. Community rhetoric was heated, with both sides standing firm. Those against the move were concerned about safety issues, confounding the issue with dangerous and misleading stereotypes about individuals experiencing homelessness. Those for the move stood on the other end of the spectrum, raising accusations of racism and prejudice. Missing from this public debate, however, were the voices of the stakeholders themselves, students and residents of the Drop Inn Center. New Voices jumped at the opportunity to engage students and residents in the larger debate by sharing their thoughts and images with the community.
Never having conducted this type of program before 2009, it was a tall order to explain to teachers and students how this experiential program would positively impact their school work. Thank you to Dr. Joy Fowler, the creative writing instructor at SCPA in 2009 for taking a leap of faith and bringing her students into the community with the spirit of creation, empathy and adventure! Thanks also to Pat Clifford, the director in 2009 at the Drop Inn Center (now the Shelterhouse) for bringing interested residents of the Drop Inn Center into a creative program with the hope of finding positive and constructive community connections.
Thanks to the staff and directors of The Mayerson Foundation for their long-standing service learning support programming in Greater Cincinnati and their willingness to support New Voices from day one…..support which continued for ten straight years!
When New Voices students first ventured out into Over the Rhine in 2009 to document this evolving neighborhood, Washington Park was still a mixture of crime, open drug use as well as a community gathering place.
Image by Zach
Sleeping bag in Washington Park
Image by Sandrina
The Cincinnati City Center Development Corporation was just getting started with its massive redevelopment efforts and was kind enough to lend New Voices students hardhats to explore some of the ongoing projects.
Image by Avery
Residents of the Drop Inn Center shared their images and insights in a final exhibition of the work at Miami University’s Center for Community Engagement in Over the Rhine. New Voices was fortunate to work with some of these same residents, one over the course of ten years, as they made their way out of the Drop Inn Center, into long term recovery programs and even on to full time employment.