We (Heal The Hood Project & Emile YX?) hereby invite you to participate in our new project called The 4 R's Project, planned for September 2022. Read more about it below and include your school or your community in the schedule of launches and book clubs we are planning to start.
The 4 R’s Project
The Concept
4 R’s is a remix of the 3 R’s of education. Our remix is localized to benefit our communities and address deeper issues of self-hate embedded in our current Eurocentric based education system. Our 4 R’s consist of:-
(1) wRiting our own stories,
(2) Reading our own stories,
(3) overstanding the Remuneration that products related to our stories can generate and explaining ways of diversifying our income streams from these creations. This also involves assessing and addressing times when others made money from our stories and ancestral intellectual property and demanding reparations.
(4) The last R is for Rehumanization and the sense of equality, humanity and pride that spreading our own story creates. It also helps to develop more than the one story told about our heritage and potential. It demands that others have no excuses to read about our stories and return our humanity that was and is stripped from us by the racist and singular views being spread.
The 4 R’s Project consists of
(1) Buy Local Books Month
(2) 40 Book Clubs
(1) BUY A LOCAL BOOK MONTH
#buyalocalbookmonth is from the 1st September– 30th Sept 2022
From the 1st September 2022, we will launch the first ever #buyalocalbookmonth in South Africa. For many years we have had other people writing about us in languages and styles that are just not our own. Ironically, these same people assess our reading and story telling abilities to determine that we do not like reading. Very few people have stopped to ask if maybe the problem is the overwhelming content of foreign stories that we are being fed from birth. None of them resonate with our deep heritage of storytelling and thus challenge our innate story telling techniques that go back to the oldest DNA on the planet. I will even go as far as saying that it was divisive to separate us from our true selves, as a means to further dehumanize us during colonialism, slavery, Apartheid and now neo-colonialism. It is 2022 and no one has come to help us, so we have taken it upon ourselves to create local Book Clubs (in communities, schools, libraries/ true-braries, universities, garages, lounges, Wendy houses, etc), where people will be encouraged to read, debate, discuss, dream and gathering in our communities. We are also encouraging these new readers of local stories to both read, write and promote our own stories in their own languages. We will also assist locals to see the power of our stories to create job opportunities and the understanding of BUYING LOCAL to allow money to rotate in our communities longer. We cannot speak about reading our own books, when we do not create our own publishing houses and distribution spaces. For too long others have decided what they think will sell or if our stories are good enough. In order to take our power back , we have decided to launch BUY A LOCAL BOOK to sell the 480 books needed for the 40 Book Clubs for 2022. We are encouraging South Africans locally and internationally to support this effort as a means to get youth reading, thinking, debating,
(2) 40 Heal The Hood Project Book Clubs 18th Sept – 7th Oct 2022
The 40 Heal The Hood Project Book Clubs will form part of the classes that are currently hosted in 15 schools and communities where we have learned that many young people are drawn to reading stories that they can identify with and that are culturally relevant to their realities. We have thus decided to share such stories with these 15 school Book Clubs and give the opportunities to 25 other interested communities or individuals that wish to host these book clubs and monthly online gatherings. Emile will return in September to tour these 40 Book Clubs to share the books and encourage locals to tell their own stories and write their own books. Heal The Hood Project will publish these collected stories. The tour of the 40 book Clubs will end in October at the South African Hip Hop Museum in Gauteng. The 25 other interested communities or individuals wishing to host a book club can email info@healthehood.org.za
The 4 R’s Rough Schedule for 2022 (14th September / 7th October 2022)
September 2022
1st Thurs - (USA) Launch of #buylocalbooksmonth - Online Launch
5th Mon - (USA) Travel to San Francisco for Tri-Continental Hip Hop Education Gathering
11th Sun - (USA) Flight to South Africa for 4 R’s Project & 40 Book Clubs
14th Weds - (RSA) Arrive back in Cape Town
15th Thurs - (RSA)
16th Fri - (RSA) Launch of Project & Reconnect the String at Bertha
17th Sat - (RSA)
18th Sun - (RSA) 6pm Zoom with WBL presents Global Hip Hop Futures
19th Monday
11:00-12:00 - (RSA) Portia Primary
13:00-14:00 - (RSA) Belmor Primary
14:45 -15:45 - (RSA) Wittebome High
(RSA)
20th Tuesday
10:00 – 11:00 - (RSA) Thomas Wildschitt
11:30 – 12:30 - (RSA) Die Duine Primary
13:30 - 14:30 - (RSA) Montigu's Gift Primary
21st Weds
11:00 – 12:00 - (RSA) Parkfields Primary
13:00 – 14:00 - (RSA) Buck Road Primary
14:15 – 15:15 - (RSA) Grassdale High
22nd Thurs
10:00-11:00 - (RSA) Open Slot
12:00-13:00 - (RSA) Heathfield Primary
13:30-14:30 - (RSA) Edendale Primary
23rd Friday
11:00-12:00 - (RSA) Pelican Park Primary
(RSA) Open Slot
14:30 – 15:30 - (RSA) Girls & Boys (Numbers Issue - After School)
24th Sat
10:00 – 11:30- (RSA) !Khwa Ttu Bushman Heritage Center
13:00 – 17:00 - Project Create Variety Concert at Pelican Park
25th Sun - (RSA/JHB) Launch of 4 R’s Project & Hip Hop Cultural Ed
at The Hip Hop Summit in JHB prior to Back To the City
26th Mon - (RSA/JHB)
27th Tues - (RSA/JHB)
28th Weds - (RSA/JHB)
29th Thurs - (RSA/JHB)
30th Fri - (RSA/JHB)
October
01th Sat - (RSA/ JHB) Back To the City Hip Hop Festival
2nd Sun - (RSA/CPT)
3rd Mon - (RSA/CPT)
4th Tues - (RSA/CPT)
5th Weds - (RSA/CPT)
6th Thurs - (RSA/CPT)
7th Fri - (RSA/CPT)
8th Sat - (RSA/CPT) Return to USA / Atlanta
