PARTNERS
Hopewell School District, Virginia + Center for Love and Justice
September 2020 - July 2021
Challenge
The Center for Love and Justice (CFL&J) co-designs schools for love, justice and collective liberation with the belief that every child has inherent dignity, worth and genius. Towards this mission CFL&J partners with school districts across the US, to support their work in redesigning education for equity. One of these school districts is the Hopewell School District in Virginia.
CFL&J approached RC with a need to craft captivating and compelling ways to share the work being done in Hopewell to rebuild their school district based in racial equity and justice with educators, administrators, students, the community, and the state. They needed a way to not only raise up what Hopewell was doing, but to grab attention and share messages from the educators in Hopewell directly with other teachers and administrators across the country who might be considering doing this work. Finally, with the upcoming Governor’s visit to Hopewell, they needed a targeted way to engage the Governor and provide interactive storytelling, bringing the many voices of those doing the work to the forefront.
RC's Response
To create powerful media and story that rose above the noise and reflected and represented educators authentically, the RC team traveled to Hopewell to craft art and story with them.
Our team facilitated one-on-one interviews with each educator to understand what they wanted to say, their vision for this work, for their students, and the future of education, and what they were unapologetically demanding. We held photo shoots with each educator, and transformed their portraits and words into illustrated posters, graphic designs, and social media assets. We also crafted illustrations and artwork to highlight the words of students who were invited to share their thoughts on transforming their schools towards equity.
Impact
Hopewell talked about the powerful impact these visuals and content had on the school district, students, and community. The visuals were hung and distributed in buildings in the school district. Our partner reported these materials allowed educators to powerfully elevate the visions and voices of their community directly to the Governor and his staff, and share the critical importance of rebuilding their education system, which sits in the heart of the confederacy, anew and steeped in racial justice. Hopewell and CFL&J have requested an expansion of this visual library to include more educators and students in Virginia and beyond.
Additionally, CFL&J expressed how, learning from RC’s work and this experience, their team internally shifted toward integrating visuals with storytelling as part of future processes.
