Ka Joog: Building Community Cohesiveness through Fanka (Art)
Ka Joog, the New American Development Center, and Shanta will build community cohesiveness between the Somali-American community and the general public through Fanka (Art) by utilizing the successful documentary “Somalia, a Nation of Poets," monthly art workshops, and Somali Independence Day. Our goal is to spread appreciation for Somali art forms and to create a platform for community based discussions about the issues that Somali-Americans face in Minnesota including islamophobia and racism.
$200,000 each year is for a grant to one or more community organizations that provide Somali-based collaborative programs for arts and cultural heritage. The Somali Museum of Minnesota may apply for a grant under this paragraph. The funding must be used for programs to provide arts and humanities education and workshops, mentor programs, classes, exhibits, presentations, community engagement events, and outreach about the Somali community and heritage in Minnesota.
In order to gauge the impact that the project has on the community, Ka Joog will measure the following outcomes:
- Number of attendees at each event: our goal is for 100-150 people to attend each Documentary Event and for 15-25 people to attend each monthly art club program.
- Diversity of participants: goal is for 40-50% of participants to be non-Somali at the Documentary Event.
- Number of Somali youth engaged: Ka Joog and partners will be reaching out to schools, religious organizations, and other programs to ensure events are marketed to youth.
- Number of artists that perform at events: this includes documenting the number of new Somali artists who participate that have not previously performed at Ka Joog related events.
- Community participation in events measured by recording participating in community discussions and through surveys at the events.
- Changes in opinions of participants towards the Somali community measured by a survey.
- Have shown four of the documentary “Somalia, a Nation of Poets" with artist performances and community-led discussions at each showings. We have shown the documentary in Wilmar, St. Cloud, Minneapolis, and in St. Paul. The original plan that we proposed was to showcase the documentary in three locations; Willmar, St. Cloud. Because of demand in the community, we decided to showcase the film in St. Paul, MN. In terms of attendees, we 134 people in Minneapolis, 122 people in St. Cloud, 115 people in Willmar, and 118 people in St. Paul. We had two artists performed at each event. We had a community discussion after the documentary. The topics that we discussed included, but limited to; Somali art traditions, generation gap with regards to arts, islamophobia, building relationship and trust between communities
- The monthly art club component involves arts learning, peer mentoring, and presentations led by a teaching artist in the Twin Cities. The workshops took place in St. Paul from November 2017 to July of 2018. Since November of 2017 until July of 2018, we hosted 12 workshops in total in the Twin Cities. There has been an average of 33-37 participants in each workshop, reaching 396 - 444 people.
- With regards to the Somali Independence Day Festival. We started the planning the event in May. Our goal for this day was to increase the presence of Somali-American artists in Minnesota taking part of the Somali Independence Day Festival that we held on June 30th of 2018. We worked with 17 various artists from different disciplines. We had an estimated of 35,000 in traffic throughout the festival. The festival was held in Minneapolis on West Lake Street.
$200,000 each year is for a grant to one or more community organizations that provide Somali-based collaborative programs for arts and cultural heritage. The Somali Museum of Minnesota may apply for a grant under this paragraph. The funding must be used for programs to provide arts and humanities education and workshops, mentor programs, classes, exhibits, presentations, community engagement events, and outreach about the Somali community and heritage in Minnesota.
In order to gauge the impact that the project has on the community, Ka Joog will measure the following outcomes:
- Number of attendees at each event: our goal is for 100-150 people to attend each Documentary Event and for 15-25 people to attend each monthly art club program.
- Diversity of participants: goal is for 40-50% of participants to be non-Somali at the Documentary Event.
- Number of Somali youth engaged: Ka Joog and partners will be reaching out to schools, religious organizations, and other programs to ensure events are marketed to youth.
- Number of artists that perform at events: this includes documenting the number of new Somali artists who participate that have not previously performed at Ka Joog related events.
- Community participation in events measured by recording participating in community discussions and through surveys at the events.
- Changes in opinions of participants towards the Somali community measured by a survey.
As a result of this funding, below are the significant outcome of this project:
- For the “Somalia, a Nation of Poets” Documentary Events, we hosted showings in Moorhead, Mankato, and Minneapolis. We had artists performed at each of these events. We also had community-led discussions about the issues that affect the Somali community in Minnesota.
- We have held 23 art workshops thus far at various locations in the Twin Cities and Moorhead and in Mankato. There has been an average of 35-40 participants in each workshop. (805 - 920 participants)
- The third significant outcome for this project is the Somali Independence Day Festival. We hosted this event in Minneapolis on West Lake Street on June 29,2019. The theme of this event is promoting diversity through unity and inclusion. It also creates an opportunity to share Somali culture with the greater Minnesotan community. At the event, we brought together Somali artists and non-Somali artists to perform at the Festival in 2019. We worked with 23 artists together including non-Somali Artists.
Here are the number of people served in the program:
- Number of attendees at each event/showing: an average of 165 people attended each of the three documentaries for a total of 495 plus 3 artists.
- For the Workshop, we held 23 art workshops thus far at various locations in the Twin Cities and Moorhead and in Mankato. There has been an average of 35-40 participants in each workshop. (805 – 920 participants)
- For the Somali Independence Day Festival, we had foot traffic over 35K. We worked with 23 artists together including non-Somali Artists.
- Diversity of participants: 43% of participants were non-Somali at the Documentary Event.
- Number of Somali youth engaged: over 400 youth have been engaged in this project.
- Number of artists that perform at events: 26 total artists that worked within this project.