At-Risk Kids Learn Life Skills through Positivity & Hip Hop: The Dignity Institute’s 7th Element

The Dignity Institute, a Massachusetts 501(c)3, recently launched “the 7th Element” to help at-risk youths learn positive communication.

What are your assumptions about Section 8 tenants?

As former landlords of a three-family house in Dorchester, MA, we’ve had our share of tenant issues, including late or no rent, property damage and untold city fines for trash put on the street too early or uncontained.

A carbon monoxide scare that occurred after two children under the age of three stuffed toys down a heating vent, causing an evacuation, was our low water mark.

At some point, we had a real conversation with our tenants—a group of three single mothers with 13 kids among them— about how to live harmoniously, what it means to be good neighbors and not leaving potato chips bags or pizza opened on the counter attracting cockroaches and other pests.

We even attempted to engage them in a conversation about how we could obtain funding to convert the apartments into condos and make them homeowners using grant funds.

They were optimistic and began brainstorming about going back to school and re-creating their lives. And, then something happened. They completely self sabotaged, leaving us high and dry in the middle of winter and with $10,000 in damages.

At first, we were angry and then we realized that our tenants, a couple of whom were struggling with mental health and substance abuse, lacked the skills to live a different life.

They truly had no idea why our sending an exterminator to trap a mouse made no difference if they were going to continue dumping trash on the side of the house. They did not know how to maintain the apartment and could not afford cleaning supplies.

It was easy to make assumptions about “them” and “us” and to think the worst. And, like the adage goes, we had not walked a mile in their moccasins.

As organizational development professionals, we build teams in businesses by helping people build relationships. We wondered how we could apply the lessons from our corporate experience to the issues that hold low-income families back.

Once we got enough distance from it, our earlier landlord experience inspired us to do our part to give back, to contribute to socioeconomic equality and commit ourselves to dignity for all.

We do this by teaching the most vulnerable communities the language of SMART Conversations®, an empowerment tool that focuses on authenticity, respect and trust.

The Dignity Institute, our nonprofit, helps other nonprofits be more efficient and effective by building better relationships among team members and within boards. We then train key staff in the organization to empower the people they serve.

Our model is to create a virtuous cycle.

We had only one problem: we were unsure how to reach kids, as our program was originally designed for adults. And, from our experience in organizations, we knew that prevention and early intervention was the key.

About a year ago, we had the good fortune to meet a group of Hip-Hop artists who were using positive Rap as a way to educate kids. While watching a young man of color Rap about the connection between potential energy in physics and human potential, we knew we had the answer.

We quickly connected with Lino Delgado, founder of the Floorlords, one of the nation’s oldest Hip-Hop dance troupes. We also met with Dwayne “Dagha” Simmons, Director of Youth Programming at AmericaScores and a Rap artist; and Akrobatik, the first-ever professor of Hip-Hop culture and history at UMass-Boston and a well-known Rap artist.

They, too, wanted to help kids in need and were focused on the positive aspects of Hip-Hop. They were missing what we had: content for life skills programming.

We're collaborating with them to help kids learn to respect themselves and others and to open themselves to hope and possibilities through the urban arts.

As we learned, the six elements of Hip Hop include the following: Music (rap/songwriting), Dance, Fashion, Media, DJ-ing and Art. SMART Conversations®, the program’s namesake is The 7th Element™.

We launched The 7th Element™ this summer at the Egleston Square YMCA in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston with financial support from The Boston Foundation, space from the Y and fiscal sponsorship from Alliger Arts.

Thirty-one kids between the ages of 8-13 participated in our program. They wrote a song called: Be Respectful, practiced urban dance moves and learned about respect, authenticity, cooperation and teamwork during our five-week program.

Within a matter of a week or two, we witnessed a transformation: kids were working together as teammates, shy ones made better eye contact, behaved more engaged and felt more comfortable contributing their ideas. Some expressed dance as “joy” or “freedom,” while others talked about “pride” and “fun.”

Here is their final project video:

With these results, we have high hopes. We have since received several offers to bring our program to other schools and facilities in Greater Boston.

This experience validated what we knew intuitively: teaching kids life skills through a culturally relevant platform would attract their interest and keep them engaged, active and, hopefully, give them hope for their future.

If you would like to learn more about our program, the Dignity Institute’s 7th Element, visit our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/TDI.T7E or contact Michele at msimos@rcn.com.