Making the Brooklyns Home to the Hmong
See application under "Documents"
2022-2023 Cultural Heritage and Community Identity Grants - Winter 2021
Mn Zej Zog's goal is to stretch the dollars of this grant funding as far as it can go:
1. By the end of Hmong Arts, Culture, and History Day in the Brooklyns, 90% of participants will be able to identify what it means to be Hmong in the Brooklyns through various hand-on activities, dialogues with community. a cultural show, and food.
2. By the end of the Hmong New Year celebration event, 100% of youth leaders will be able to demonstrate youth leadership skills through volunteering, performing, and hosting the event.
3. By the end of the Hmong New Year celebration event, 90% of participants will be able to define the importance of the Hmong New Year through educational booths, skits in the show, poetry, dialoging with creating new friendships with other attendees, etc...
4. By the end of Healing through Music Program, 100% youth participants will be able to create youth friendly Hmong inspired songs through weekly vocal lessons, recording it and have in produced to the final stages and showcased at future Hmong New Year in the Brooklyns.
5. By the end of the Healing Hmong Music Retreat, 90% of youth participants will have a compiled list of tools to help cope with tough situations and heal through music themes, mini-mental health workshops, and messages from artists and professionals.
6. By the end of the Hmong Films in the Parks, 90% of families will be able to ask questions to better understand about Hmong culture, history, and language that shows up in the film through viewing various Hmong films dialoging with directors and the cast and crew after the film.
Brooklyn's Hmong New Year: Due to unforeseen circumstances, because our artist was able to complete the HNY poster for 2023, she spent some time on the project this winter to finish what she had started in November; therefore, we are excited to have a permanent HNY poster to have in place for many years to come.
Healing Through Music School Program:
Kevin and the students continue to make great progress. Both students groups are more than have way complete with their songs after weeks of intensive work with voice training. Here's is a demo from the Augsburg group for you to preview: https://www.canva.com/design/DAFhELCJcCo/9FTpcMZYKuzICQVgwIlTcw/watch?u…. Students at Patrick Henry will be debuting their hit single at their May show on Friday, May 19th in the evening at their school.
In collaboration with McPhail's Hmong music program, we will also be stipending another Hmong artist, Michelle Elle who also has been working with students from Park Center and Osseo Senior high. She's been working tirelessly with students. Students at PC and Osseo have their performance on Friday, May 26th from 5:30-8pm at Park Center High School auditorium.
Healing Through Hmong Music Retreat/Concert for Youths: Our committee has been working with the City of BP and BC to create this unique opportunity. We will be hosting the event on Saturday, July 8th from 3-9pm at Centennial Park in Brooklyn Center. We are in the midst of securing Hmong artists from the community, creating a flyer, save the date event on FB, etc....There will be special performances from our Healting Through Music program that will give our Hmong youths the chance to increase their confidence, show their work to the world, and spreads words of healing for young people.
Hmong Films in the Parks: We did a film showing in collaboration with our other coalition - the MN Hmong Educators coalition. We invited the BC and BP community along with MN Hmong educators to watch the newest Hmong film, Xai and Luna, that was released in Nov of 2022. We had about 150 people in attendance and had a great Q and A after the show. The film touched on some hard to discuss topics in the Hmong community through humor and language. The event was well received.
The results was above and beyond what we could ever imagine. Having the right people on our planning team including youths, community members and many more to bring the voices of the community was key to success. Every event was well organized and good intension for the community. Attendance participation was one form of measuring success and the narrative conversations after the events that continue to spark the community interest on the impact of the event on them. That's how we know we were successful. We feel that the goals were very attainable and we achieved them with the right artist and space venue as a part of the collaboration. Thank you for your investment in believing in MN Zej Zog for carrying out this much needed work. I will send a final report with more details to Laura Adams that contains the narrative and photos from events.
For the Hmong Films in the Park - Xai and Luna - we had another funding to support the desserts/snacks - $595. . As always, we look for partnership to take these events to the next level. We can't do it alone as an organization.
Hmong Community Explore Your Parks Day was co-funded by Hennepin County, and other non-profits
Brooklyns Hmong New year was co-funded by City of Brooklyn Center and City of Brooklyn Park
Making Music with Students was co-funded by McPhail Center for Music
Co-Executive Director, Jenna Cushing-Leubner (Caucasian)
Treasure, Dao Hawj (Hmong-American) Board of Director
Yee Yang (Hmong-American) Board of Director
Kaochi Pha (Hmong-American) Board of Director
See Lee (Hmong-American) Board of Director
Choking Thao (Hmong-American) Board of Director
Kaj Tug Emily Lee (Hmong-American) Board of Director
Community Representative: Linda Yang (Hmong-American)
Community Representative: Diane Sannes (Caucasian)Community Representative: Yer Syhaphom (Hmong-American); Co-Executive Director, Pang Yang (Hmong-American)
Co-Executive Director, Jenna Cushing-Leubner (Caucasian)
Treasure, Dao Hawj (Hmong-American)
Secretary, Gaolee Khang (Hmong-American)
Board of Director, Kaj Tug Emily Lee (Hmong-American)
Board of Director, Yee Yang (Hmong-American)
Board of Director, Kaochi Pha (Hmong-American)
Board of Director, See Lee (Hmong-American)
Board of Director, Chakong Thao (Hmong-American)