Project Reach Works on Issues of Race, Gender, and Class with 3 High Schools

CPC's Don Kao and Katherine Chambers, Directors of Project Reach, conducted a multi-school collaborative workshop to address issues of race, gender identity, socio-economic class, sexual orientation, ability, and more with 30 students and 3 staff representing each school.

The day-long workshop included exercises like the "Boat" and "Dot" exercises which explore individual experiences of power, privilege, and stereotyping. The three high schools that took part include Channel View High School, New Visions Charter High School, and Scholars' Academy, a high-achieving school, all located in Rockaway, Queens.  

As noted in the local newspaper The Wave, Scholars' Academy Principal Brian O’Connell summed up the day as a way to describe the school’s attitude toward creating a school that is a haven of hope and a model of positive integration in an accelerated learning environment in every way.

Project Reach is a youth- and adult-led collaboration and a multiracial, multi-gender, grassroots, anti-discrimination, youth organizing center with a commitment to challenging the destruction among, of, and between New York City's disparate youth communities. Through workshops and trainings, opportunities are provided for youth to incubate new approaches and strategies to address discrimination and injustice and place social control in their own hands.

Project Reach is funded through various government and private supporters including the New York City Council and The Rose & Sherle Wagner Foundation.