maybe a little late, but I'm sure any support is good

Read more here: the%20People%20Could%20Fly%20PDF.pdf

Dear Friends,

Exciting news! The People Could Fly Project is headed to Africa. The Project has been sponsored by the Africa Travel Association and next week we are traveling to the East African country of Djibouti to take part in the 11th Annual Eco and Cultural Tourism Symposium, being hosted by the Ministry of Youth, Sports, Recreation, and Tourism of Djibouti.

We will be traveling with the ATA's Young Professional Forum. The Project will be visiting with students at the University of Djibouti and sharing with school-age children the story of The People Could Fly by master children's book author Virginia Hamilton. Hamilton passed away in 2002 leaving a great legacy of multi-cultural children's literature. The Djibouti Government has graciously offered to sponsor our hotel accommodations, meals, and on-ground transportation.

Since we began The PCF Project last spring my sisters and I have worked to make the dream of documenting the dreams and stories of young people across the African Diaspora a reality. With a belief that anything can be accomplished we've taken our cameras, our hearts, hopes, and minds across the US, from our home in Memphis, TN to Philly, Washington, Jena LA, New York, San Francisco, St. Louis, Inglewood, Detroit, Atlanta, Nashville, Connecticut, Detroit, North Carolina, and Mississippi. We've filmed, photographed, and interviewed young people of color and anyone and everyone in the making of a documentary about the power of our dreams.

You see, we know that the dreams of young folk and people of color are possible! We know that our stories are important, despite the dearth of in depth and positive images on the lives of young people of color. Our mission throughout has been to find and show these important images and stories within the faces, from the very voices and dreams of young people of color, to create images that speak of how powerful we are and can be.

...And now we are poised to take the grand flight to Africa.

And now we need your help! Our flight fees have largely been acquired. We know that we can raise the remaining funds for the journey. We are spending of ourselves,

our talents, and our gifts to meet the remaining funds. In exchange for your contributions, your gift will be acknowledged officially with a signed 5x7 photograph from Djibouti taken by Intisar Abioto and other memorabilia from the journey. Gifts of $50 and up will be acknowledged with a matted and signed 8x10 photograph from Djibouti.

We are hosting a Photography Showing and Fundraising event this coming Sunday, January the 13th at World Safaris Tapas Bar
on 414 S. Main, Memphis, TN.
We will be screening film footage and photography from our journey thus far.
There will also be a dance reading of the story of
The People Could Fly.

Attached you will find the official invitation from the Africa Travel Association to The People Could Fly Project and a broader description of the Project.

Please forward to your network, asking your friends and family to contribute online at thepeoplecouldfly.blogspot.com

Footage, photos, and updates from Djibouti will be updated periodically on our blog where you can see more from The Project (The story of how this trip came to be is amazing ! That's on the blog too. ) And read our recent interview with poet Nikki Giovanni in The Memphis Tri-State Defender!

We believe and pursue with veracity and belief... Anything and everything can happen.

In Flight and Faith

Intisar,
Kalimah,
Hanifah,
Amenta,
and Aisha Abioto
The People Fly Project



sO you want to know the deal?
I'll tell you the deal. We're almost there. We've received about $1700 dollars of contributions from friends and family.
To everyone who has sent in good wishes and contributions thanks so much! We are almost there.

Roundtrip costs from Memphis to Djibouti, East Africa:
$340 x 3 ( As opposed to the $5,806 per person it would be otherwise. Insane insane insane I know..!)

Travel Insurance:
$25 x 3
Visas to Djibouti
$50 x 3

Safety net money while traveling from Memphis to Amsterdam to Paris to Addis Ababa to Djibouti, and back.
$1500

Malaria pills
$40
Yellow fever shot for two;
$245

Hotel, meals, on-site transportation, direction, and guides while there are courtesy of the Africa Travel Association and the government of Djibouti.

Total: A whopping $2985 for a journey for 3 people halfway across the world! yeah!


If you will contribute anything!
If even just 200 people sent in $5 that'd be $1000. Or if you can just give $3 or $2 or 50 cents!
It's that serious. We are almost there!

I will bring something back for everyone who contributes! Even if you just wanna send me a good wish message (I'll appreciate it and bring you something back..) don't know what.. that's part of the journey!
We are wanting to document us! you! me! from our! your! our! perspectives and do something that has never been done!

Contributions can be made securely via Paypal at thepeoplecouldfly.blogspot.com
We fly! this evening for Amsterdam!
ANYTHING you can give will help us make it! !u

See you on the other side!

-iNTISAR!


The People Could Fly Project
ph: 901-826-1532

Intisar S. Abioto
thepeoplecouldfly.blogspot.com

Check out http://thepeoplecouldfly.blogspot.com/, a blog by Intisar Abioto and her sisters. I had the pleasure of meeting Intisar only briefly recently in New York. It's a lovely project and you really have to check the blog to get a fuller flavor. Here's a brief description of the project from the blog:

Call me Intisar. I'm on a journey with my four sisters across America and Africa and South America to sniff out, sift out and research the dreams and stories of young people in the African Diaspora through a legend! about Flying Africans who escape slavery through flight. The folktale is found all across the Americas from the American South to the West Indies, Brazil and even on to Nigeria. HAVE YOU HEARD of it? It is also found in Virginia Hamilton's The People Could Fly. Is it real? Can Africans, can people fly? Did some really fly away from slavery?What does it mean to fly? to be able? to attempt and succeed ? to dream? and shift the dream into reality?.. To dream really and to land in that place.. is it a place too, a dream? our dreams..? We have questions more than anything.. So we are traveling and talking to people, filming and shooting a docu-narrative about journey and the people we meet.. and creating and "telling the tell" as Virginia Hamilton would say.. around these questions.. and these answers .. and the journeys.. of flight! and Imagination. Yes, importance there. Importance there. Don't forget that..ok?

What are our dreams and stories? Can we approach them as realities in waiting? We shall we will we do, we do. Yes? Yes. Here we speak, create around our powers as dreamers and the folks, the folks you hear? who be makin'em reality...
the people who fly. Is that a promise or what? This is for everyone.

Check out this blog, http://dodgeburn.blogspot.com/, from photographer Qiana Mestrich on photography and photographic history. It's not exactly new, but it's new to me.

Love her! I posted about Andrea Pippins' blog, Fly, when I first discovered it. As I recently posted on her site, I read a lot of design blogs, and though I enjoy the objects, tips, images, etc., black designers, stylists, creative people--black anybodies--are non-existent in that realm. It's so very tiresome. Fly is fabulous because it's so wonderfully integrated. Definitely check it out.

Check out this profile of Andrea at another great site, ymib.com.

beyond belief

I saw this mentioned yesterday on Racialicious, I think, but then found a link to a news story on an amazing blog I discovered today via Afrobella: What About Our Daughters?

In light of the Jena protests yesterday and the general state of our world, it's definitely important to spend some time @ What About Our Daughters? and in particular check out this story which I've been following via the various online resources:

Torture-rape victim faces bad-check counts

The part that really got to me?

The false check charge is for a $32.21 check to Dominos Pizza. The false pretenses charge is for $96.40 to the Kiddie Junction Consignment Shop in Beaver.

Come on now, after what she's just gone through--food and what seems like used children's items?

myra's blogging caa

(check it out--for those of us into academic conferences)

Myra Greene

Myra Greene is an assistant professor in the Photographic Arts Department at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York. Her theoretical interests include the shifting identity of African Americans in today’s popular and consumer culture. She continues to challenge the types of images that photographs can potentially create. Greene holds a BFA in photography from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA in studio art from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Greene’s work can be seen at www.myragreene.com.

All posts by Myra Greene

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• Morning session
• blog busting
• Conference Pulse/ Job Search
• Two Themes
• Identity Issues