PREVIOUS CHILDREN's WORKSHOPS
Ages 4 to 13 - (Check back for updates)
Yoga for Kids
with Yogini Dr. Tracee L. Jamison-Hooks
Children’s Yoga has immense benefits for children’s growing minds and spirits. Yoga calms and relaxes children, balances hyperactivity and stimulates minds. Overall, yoga brings a deep sense of awareness to individuals helping them to see that they are Love, Joy and Peace.
Dr. Tracee Hooks is a certified yoga instructor in the Ancient Kemetic Yoga (200-hour), Hatha Yoga (200-hour), Radiant Child Yoga (30-hour) and Yoga for kids with ADD/ADHD and differently abled children (20-hour). She is an Art of Living Teacher trained by His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (artofliving.org). She is also a senior NASA engineer currently working on a miniature Satellite (CubeSat) mission that will study energetic particles emitted from the earth’s radiation belt and for a RADAR project called EcoSAR (will study biomass vegetation).
Dr. Hooks brings playfulness, fun and lightness to a child’s yoga practice. She helps them move through their practice seamlessly and effortlessly. Her aim is to help children discover the vast amount of rich resources that lies within them bringing them into a new awareness of themselves.
Let Your Light Shine
African Heritage Games
with Bashea Imana
Iya (Bashea Imana) is an Award-winning educator and entertainer. She has inspired, educated, and empowered thousands of children for over 18 years. Iya is the founder of Kuumba Kids, an innovative developer and provider of culturally relevant educational programs and materials for children. Iya's energetic, enthusiastic, and motivating personality captivates children of all ages.
Children can join Iya for an interactive, hands-on, fun-filled time. Iya will masterfully blend traditional African storytelling, music & movement, art & crafts, and puppetry into an uplifting, educational experience. In this workshop, Iya will share the keys to realizing your inner and inherit greatness, reaching your highest potential, and using Our great traditional wisdom to create positive change in yourself, your community, and the world. Kuumba Kids entertains audiences of all ages with interactive programs that blend music & movement, storytelling, and puppetry into a unique, fun-filled, and memorable experience.
Music & Movement - Story-telling - Games - Arts & Craft
Capoeira Angola
with Skher Brown
Capoeira Angola is a system of hand to hand combat that Africans in Brazil developed in response to their enslavement by the Portuguese. Capoeira Angola has its origins among the n'golo traditions of Angola/Kongo area. Once in Brazil, Africans transformed this Rites of Passage competition into a martial art that they used to liberate themselves from the plantation and escaped into the mountains to form secret communities, or Quilombos. Here in the Quilombos, Capoeira was used to fight off the Portuguese and eventually formed an African kingdom on Brazilian soil called Palmares that lasted for over 200 years.
The practice of Capoeira Angola was done in secrecy and practitioners could expect severe consequences if they were discovered. Because of that, much of the history and legacy of Capoeira has been systematically destroyed although it has remained in the oral traditions. In its contemporary form, Capoeira Angola involves music, dancing, fighting and a game all in one. The workshop will introduce students to the basic movements and music of Capoeira.
AAHA's YEP (Youth Entrepreneur Project)
with Mama Ayo Handy-Kendi
YEP opportunities for skills and leadership development through a hands-on self help, learning and earning opportunity at the Marketplace. AAHA offered training and experiences to a "YouthPreneur" to market or sell their products and services through subsidized exhibit booth spaces through direct public donations for this activity. Other youth received life, customer relations, entrepreneur and special events skills.
This project, served as a model for many other trade shows who also recognized the vital need to "grow" their business leaders in the African American community through youth entrepreneurship. AAHA's YEP a successful track record of training youth in entrepreneurship and offering opportunities to not only learn but to earn money through our own Black culture with our own models of self-sufficiency to affect the next generation.
Rhythm of the Drum, Power of My Breath
with Shawna Browne-Murray & Yuma "Dr. Yew" Bellomee
Drumming and Meditation for Children
Shawna Murray-Browne, LCSW-C is the owner of Kindred Wellness, LLC, a holistic practice for the healing, empowerment and renewal of women, girls and their families. she holds a Masters degree in Social Work from the University of Maryland, Baltimore and a Bachelor of Science in Criminology and Family Science from the University of Maryland, College Park. Shawna is a Licensed Certified Social Worker- Clinical (LCSW-C), life coach and advocate for women and girls. She provides personalized, culturally-affirming life coaching and psychotherapy that honors the healing power of art, movement and connection to nature.
Yuma "Dr. Yew" Bellomee is a Certified Holistic Health Consultant, herbalist, wellness advocate/educator, and musical artist, who has been featured in numerous radio programs, natural hair, health & beauty expos, magazine articles, and community and school programs as a speaker and workshop facilitator on wholistic wellness. He is also the founder of Yew-360 Wholistic Health & Wellness, LLC (www.yew360.com), and a member of the African Wholistic Health Association.
Afrobeat Youth Dance
with BabaTunde Pyne
Native Washingtonian of Yoruba ancestry, Babatunde has been dancing since the tender age of 5 - then a student of the Children's Studio Art School of DC. He began formal training by age 14, with Kankouran West African Dance Company, under the tutelage of Asane Konte. Since then, he has studied nationally, internationally and performed with various dance companies in the Washington Metropolitan Area. Currently, he works as an Educator with over 15 years of classroom and teaching experience. Babatunde uses dance and movement as a means of building positive self-esteem, character, discipline, cultural and academic integrity in his students. Babatunde is a father, teacher, mentor, and part of the Arts community of the DC Metropolitan Area, specializing in West Afrikan Dance, movement, and traditions.