WA Asian Pacific Islander Community Services Programs
STREET SCHOLARS
A Leadership and Outpatient Drug Treatment Program based on the evidence based program the 7 Challenges. Youth learn about substance abuse and about environmental factors that may cause substance abuse in communities of color.. Youth are challenged to increase their awareness in order to make an educated decision to stay sober.
PREVENTION
WAPI's prevention program has many components that serve youth with leadership skills, music and art, and drug refusal skills. Programs include:
Katalyst: An after school Hip Hop program for students ages 13-19. The Urban Arts portion teaches classic and graffiti inspired art techniques. The Music portion teaches students how to emcee, record, and make music.
Leadership Council: A group of Asian Pacific Islander teens ages 14-18 from Seattle. Based on the Leadership and Resiliency Program, an evidenced base practice, youth meet weekly, learn leadership, plan monthly community service events and monthly fun activities. The council is youth-run with the help of adult advisers
Girl's Group: A youth-run group of Young Women of Color who meet weekly, similar to the Leadership Council.
QWAPI: A support group for LGBTQ youth and their allies. Youth from the Leadership Council started QWAPI in response to the need for community support for LGBTQ youth.
Project Alert: A best practice program taught to middle school youth in Seattle Schools, providing drug and alcohol education and refusal skills.
Recent Successes and Current Challenges
Katalyst is WAPI’s art education program. It was started in 2007 with local Hip Hop artists Blue Scholars and Abyssinian Creole. Katalyst provides a safe space for youth to make music and art in a positive environment. The program also serves as therapeutic recreation for our Street Scholars Treatment Program. Participants receive hands-on experience in various hip-hop disciplines including music, recording, and urban art. After youth complete the first year, they are invited to join the second year class where the focus is on the business aspect of the music industry or urban arts.
WAPI is looking to diversify its funding since social service and arts funding has been scarce in the past few years. WAPI intends to sell the unique music and art produced by the Katalyst youth in order to pay for teaching artists, equipment and other expenses without grant funding or public money. Through this new program, youth will also have the opportunity to learn about business and entrepreneurship as experienced professionals guide them through the process. Youth will also learn about royalties, publishing and copyrighting.
WAPI already has connections with local Hip Hop artists, the space, equipment and infrastructure to create art and music that will be sold to support the program. We are now looking for seed money to purchase materials to reproduce CDs, t-shirts and screen-printing and make posters of our youth’s art.