East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice

June helped facilitate an artistic mural/montage process with our Youth in Action! (high school youth component from Cabrillo High). During the process, one of the activities she led at the end of some of our art build sessions was a mindful meditation. This was helpful for our youth as they were going through a very busy season with their school work, extracurricular activities, and organizing. As part of the art process she also guided our youth in a talking circle/healing/affirmation activity where our youth leaders were able to go through positive self reflection collectively. The youth said that it was a positive experience that helped them see themselves in a more positive light, that they have worth, that they skills, aspects of them that should be celebrated. 

We chose to work with June because she is a local POC artist that does amazing work with art & healing amongst POC leaders in LB. We wanted to not only have our youth go through an artistic process led by a local artist but we were aware that June has run various workshops & facilitated activities that aligns with the community values our youth leaders wanted to be exposed to through this process.

The art process that June led our youth leaders in was not confined to making only an actual product. She helped heal the wounded artists within our youth, that they could make meaningful art that articulated the work & vision they are trying to create in their community. 

June's art process help engage our leaders in their own skills that they can produce art and that their art has value and worth. She helped them to learn to better love themselves and to also be more present and mindful. 

I honestly think that if we didn't have June, the process would have been more solely focused on producing an art piece for our Guerrilla Bike Toxic Tour rather than going through meaningful process. She conceptualize the art project beyond the confines of making a product but it is what we walk away through that process individually as well as collectively that we really benefit.

I wholeheartedly would recommend June to work with all kinds of organizations in various facilitation activities even beyond art. She has amazing skills and a way of facilitating that is inclusive and open to folks of many backgrounds, experiences, and types of traumas (especially when working with folks from working class, people of color communities from the hoods). She did an amazing job in shaping the art process not solely to produce a piece project but to have our youth leaders be more present in their day to day activities, to be more present in themselves, & to be more present in their peers in this collective youth space. 

-Jan Victor Andasan, Community Organizer
www.eycej.org