February Shared Offering Recipient: Saving Our Lives, Hear Our Truths

This month's Shared Offering recipient is Saving Our Lives, Hear Our Truths (SOLHOT), a "a space to celebrate Black girlhood in all of its complexity with Black girls and those who love and support us. In SOLHOT we dance, sing, discuss important issues, create art, and organize together to improve the communities of which we are a part. We do what needs to be done. The process of doing SOLHOT involves being together and deciding what our work will be based on the gifts, talents, and ideas of those who show up. More than anything we value Black girls’ lives and create spaces to affirm Black girl genius." Girls who participate in SOLHOT meet after school to gather together to share stories, insights, art, and expression--all with the aim of celebrating black girlhood." (SOLHOT is...) an arts-infused space that is dedicated to documenting the lived experiences of Black female students (from middle school to graduate students) for the purpose of producing knowledge that is relevant, action-oriented, and collaborative. In SOLHOT, Black women and girls creatively engage with and work against the obstacles in their daily lives. Working against and through a dominant culture that claims their race, gender, class, age, and sexuality cause their "problem behavior," these Black women and girls work together to disrupt contemporary discourses of Black girlhood as inherently problematic.