The Anti- Gun Violence Asset Mapping Project serves as a catalyst to focus on what is good in underserved communities and be expanded. Our goal is to serve as an ally to Crisis Management System organizations and allow our youth led multimedia project to serve as an organizing tool to help them grow capacity to provide preventative services that will help fight gun violence with a focus on creating more just economic and health opportunities for the greater community.
Project Site: Anti-Gun Violence Asset Mapping Project
DIVAS (Digital Interactive Visual Arts Science) for Social Justice was awarded funding in 2020 from the Verizon Foundation to expand programming to South Jamaica and the Bronx by providing STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, math) learning at New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) community centers. In 2023, DIVAS for Social Justice received funding from Con Edison and The Pinkerton Foundation to expand this project.
Mapping What Matters
DIVAS was invited to participate in two partnerships to fulfill their work funded under the Verizon grant. A representative from NYCHA’s Private/Public Partnerships department served as a liaison to coordinate bringing the two organizations together. The representative from NYCHA met with DIVAS and suggested creating an interactive map addressing the issue of gun violence focused on the northern section of the Bronx. DIVAS had previously worked on two successful environmental community mapping projects: The Bed-Stuy Community Eco-Mapping Project and Perspectives in Alcohol in East New York. Both community mapping projects utilized Google Maps of the neighborhoods and points on the map highlighted media content as a solution to the community issue that was being addressed. For example, from 2010–12, the work of The Bed-Stuy Community Eco-Mapping Project raised awareness to highlight all of the community gardens in the neighborhood that were growing fruits and vegetables to address the issue of food insecurity. It also highlighted that the majority of the urban farmers were people of color who cared about the health and environment of their community. For the project Perspectives in Alcohol in East New York, youth documented within a five-block radius of their school how many alcohol advertisements youth were exposed to. Both projects focused on developing a solution-based approach to a community issue rather than just focusing on the deficits of the community.
As the executive director of DIVAS, I expressed my concern about creating a community mapping project with a focus on gun violence. The major question I asked the NYCHA representative was: Is the expectation that we collect information on the loss of life to gun violence? DIVAS was not willing to create a map that focused solely on highlighting violence in communities of color. The NYCHA representative agreed. I suggested, “What if we highlight what is good in a community that could help fight gun violence?” NYCHA appreciated the concept and agreed.
Assets and Access for All
In designing the curriculum for the Anti-Gun Violence Asset Mapping Project, DIVAS wanted the facilitation to be accessible in the event participants only had access to Wi-Fi, Chromebooks, and Web 2.0. In addition, there was an emphasis on understanding and identifying community assets in the neighborhood that focused on health, wellness, and economic development. Through a partnership with New York University (NYU), Dr. Kayla DesPortes and her research team developed the pilot curriculum over the span of four months in 2020 and launched it in the spring of 2021. The goals of the curriculum were to:
- Develop a greater understanding of how gun violence is a health crisis and how it affects communities of color.
- Teach students the fundamentals of community mapping as a tool for community activism.
- Develop a clear understanding of community assets, focusing on economic development, health, and wellness.
- Allow students and facilitators to develop technical skills through open-source materials for deliverable output.
- Develop critical thinking skills through research of community assets that are effective in preventing gun violence.
Using Open Source Strategically
DIVAS for Social Justice and the team from NYU knew that digital equipment would be limited at NYCHA community centers. The goal was to create a curriculum that could teach young people the power of utilizing open-source resources to help build their future portfolios for school and work. DIVAS and NYU designed lessons that focused on utilizing the tools in Google Drive to build the multimedia project. For example, one of the first lessons of the curriculum focused on understanding what community is and the definition of community assets. In the lesson, students were introduced to using the digital whiteboard Jamboard, as a tool for them to express what community means to them through words and images. Jamboard is also used as a tool to highlight community assets based on research using keywords. Utilizing open source as the driving force to learning also educated students in digital literacy.
Scaling the Asset Mapping Project
In September 2023, the Anti-Gun Violence Asset Mapping Project expanded to Laurelton, Queens, and East New York, Brooklyn. Students, ages 8–14 participated in the project and have successfully contributed content to the mapping project in different mediums. Students in middle school conducted community street audits of their neighborhoods and identified community assets to be featured on the interactive map. While all students learned the foundations of urban planning, elementary students focused on using a 3 in. x 10 in. vinyl map to identify the assets in their community and redesigned parts of the neighborhood through magnetic tiles, expanding on the good of the community. All youth focused on finding community assets with a focus on health, wellness, and community. Middle school students from both Queens and Brooklyn also conducted interviews with community stakeholders through sound and film that will be featured on the map.