RYSE recently welcomed anchor partner The Hidden Genius Project onto our new campus. Holding programming in RYSE’s renovated Legacy Building as well as the recently opened RYSE Commons building, The Hidden Genius Project exemplifies many of our values, with one in particular that feels especially pertinent: Youth Power.

This program season, with the May Grand Opening fast approaching, the campus was as lively as ever, swelling with energy, laughter, activism, imagination, and color. See below what we were able to capture!

In celebration of International Women’s Month, featured below is a poem by RYSE member and the second EVER Youth Poet Laureate of Richmond, Adriana Avalos! Adriana is a Bay Area born Chicana poet, activist, and scholar. A HUGE congratulations to her on her well deserved achievement.

Beloved Community,

This Fall season was and is one of RYSE’s most notable yet. Full of change and reflection, the season was accentuated by both RYSE’s 13th Birthday as well as staff returning to in-person work inside of a nearly completed, new RYSE building and ever-evolving RYSE Commons Campus. With the pandemic fast approaching the two year mark, we cocooned in the virtual space for over a year, preparing for seismic shifts in what RYSE looks like, how it operates, and what it has to offer. Inhabiting this physical space, while in its final stages of active construction, made the cocooning all the more real: we are here and this is happening…

It’s been a time of transformation. Walking through the construction site hits almost all of the senses, which come together to highlight this transformation. Touring RYSE’s new campus this past July reunited a community that was and still is cocooning in the virtual space: some that hadn’t seen each other face-to-face in a year and a half and some that hadn’t seen each other face-to-face at all. Being an organization founded on lifting up the imaginations of the Richmond’s youth and turning those imaginations into something the hands can feel and eyes can see, the new RYSE building is one of the latest manifestations of that mission.

RYSE Pryde 2021 celebration kicked off this month with a POSE theme! As we POSE with RYSE we would like to honor the Ballroom Culture born out of the Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ community in NY. The culture goes beyond the extravagant events. Participants also belong to groups known as “houses,” a long standing tradition in LGBTQ+ communities of color, where chosen family, familial relationships often formed in place of estranged family, live in households together. Each post we highlighted a different member of the LGBTQ+ community and the amazing work they’ve done, all in the theme of the TV show POSE!…

Earlier today, MacKenzie Scott and Dan Jewett announced a $2.7 billion contribution to 286 organizations. RYSE is incredibly honored to be announced alongside these groups. We are grateful to Ms. Scott, Mr. Jewett, and their team for this profound financial investment in our work. RYSE exists because twenty years ago, queer, BIPOC young people had the courage to organize and demand a space in their city that centers their collective healing, bold visions, and immense creativity…

May was all about youth platforms, with the multiple youth-led workshops and open mics, as well as opportunities, with internships and workshops delving into life after high school. May was also AAPI Heritage Month. Representing the AAPI community and the spirit of the multiple RYSE youth who displayed their power this month, here is a forward by Ann Guiam, former RYSE member and current RYSE staff!…

April was an abundant month at RYSE.

To set the tone, it was both RYSE’s International Worker’s Movement theme for April and California’s Arts, Culture, & Creativity Month. This also happened to coincide with our art-heavy Leadership Institute, the 4 week audition period for our in-house multimedia theatrical production The Land of Sankofa, and arts collaborations with our partners, including WCCUSD. Arts workers were on the brain this month…

Justice is a gatekept term. Who gets to define justice? Within the criminal legal system, justice is defined for Black and Brown communities and not by our Black and Brown communities: these state-defined parameters limiting our imagination of what we need and deserve.

Justice isn’t one jury verdict. Justice would look at the full breadth of the system and ensure there won’t be more violence tomorrow; violence in all of its forms. It shouldn’t take the most hardcore, visceral form of it for the world to respond, demanding a justice that doesn’t truly address the root…