Jul 11, 20191 min read

African American Museum of the Arts

Joshua Brown, Ne'Kaye Acree, Nyia Starke, Jayden Wright, Director Mary Allen, Stoney Colbert, and Winston Conrad Brown, hold greating cards they created during the photography program at the African American Museum of the Arts in DeLand, Florida.

The African American Museum of the Arts in DeLand, Florida provided a free three-week cultural enrichment summer camp: Camp Kuumba (Creativity) for grades one through five. Camp Kuumba, utilized hands on activities in photography, art, music, textile printing, arts and crafts, literature. Students went on field trips to various community locations to practice these skills. Team Hardnotts University Youth Awareness Program, had the opportunity to run three of therapeutic photography sessions with the kids in the summer program for the fifth year.

On day one of the program the youth were given cameras along with their first assignment to create an image of something that represented the four of July. During the second session of the photography program, the youth were asked to create an image showing their interest in nature. On the last day of the photography program the youth were asked to create street photography images.

The ages of the youth attending the summer program at the museum ranged from eight old to 13 years of age. The great thing about running the photography program with the youth is that they all worked together helping each other create their images. At the end of each session the youth created greeting cards using the photography they took.