Programs & Projects

Applications now available!
A new, 11-month, stipended opportunity for students to build their practice of social justice solidarity through engagement with community leaders and organizers, reflection and dialogue, community mobilization, and creative expression. Solidarity is a commitment, not a destination.

The Massachusetts TPS Committee, the Boston Experimental Theatre Company, the Boston Neighborhood Network and actors from "The Last Dream" created a theater production and documentary film about U.S. children whose parents risk deportation if TPS (Temporary Protected Status) is ended. They perform this play about it to fight for their parents ability to stay with them in the United States and to inform folks what TPS is and to inspire people to support their cause and act in their defense. They have performed The Last Dream in U.S. schools, churches, before Congress members in Washington D.C., participated in a Journey4Justice bus caravan across the U.S. and they flew to Rome and talked with the Pope.

If nothing changes, by January 4, 2021, the TPS Program will end and their parents, among 400,000 people in the United States, will be at risk of deportation. Their ultimate goal is for TPS parents and all TPS holders to have U.S. Permanent Residency. There are more than 300,000 children and youth in the United States who are in danger of being separated from their families who have TPS. The Elma Lewis Center is collaborating with the Massachusetts TPS Committee to create a Zine series: TPS Justice: Our Families Are Not Temporary.

The Universidad Nacional de Colombia, the largest public university in Colombia with campuses in nine cities throughout the country, is dedicated to education accessible to people of all economic, social and educational status. The Medellín campus is one of two universities in the Americas that are also ecological nature reserves. Core to the Universidad Nacional mission is that research, study and publications are intentionally applied with a deep dedication to the possibility of research and community-centered projects to improve the quality of life for people throughout Colombia.

The Elma Lewis Center has ongoing collaborations with the Departamento de Arte y Arquitectura in PBM (Proyecto Boston Medellín), a project in which young emerging artists create community centered art in response to some of our world’s most pressing humanitarian and environmental crises and possible solutions. The ELC is also collaborating in transnational story circles in Colombia with elders and youth in rural and urban areas regarding their local and global knowledge of ancestral lands and practices.

The concept of a “hidden figure” is compelling because it provides an opportunity to uncover the histories of individuals who have been obscured by history and to complicate the notion of who is “hidden.” The Hidden Figures Syllabus recognizes and celebrates powerful Black women from across the African diaspora, whose work is often erased from history. The syllabus consists of a list of texts, films and audio materials by and about Black women and serves as a living archive for the continued remembrance of those on whose shoulders we stand. The project was researched, designed, and curated by Zoë Gadegbeku, Ghanaian writer with a creative writing MFA from Emerson, and former communications manager on the ELC team. Her work was supported by Judy Pryor Ramirez, former Elma Lewis Scholar-in-Residence at the ELC.