Making Love with Both Hands

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Bentrice Jusu
Making Love with Both Hands
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Making Love with Both Hands
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My future is in Both Hands, an art-based non-profit organization that I founded in January of 2011. Both Hands’ purpose is to utilize the young adult voices of Trenton, NJ who have collegiate experience that will in turn provide multidimensional artistic mediums, a chance for self-expression, skill building, relationship building, mentoring, and more to inner city and underserved teens in Trenton, NJ. Both Hands is indispensible for those teens that need to discover a healthy escape mechanism from the high crime and dropout rate whilst experiencing an immediate mentorship with people close to their age and from their city. I am committed to ensuring the artistic and civil cultivation of my city. Along with the arts, this is the one endeavor I wholeheartedly believe will restore the reputation of the teens by providing positive alternatives for all. Spark Challenge will allow me to continue my advocacy for Both Hands, the teens of Trenton, and for the arts as a means to instill happiness, build character, and provide a faithful source for teen development. This summer, we will run the second program of Both Hands Summer Institute with more teens and a stronger teaching team. Whereas last year, I worked alone to coordinate the 5 classes for the 15 teens, this year I have recruited 6 additional instructors to each develop his or her own curriculum in one of six different artistic media for over 50 anticipated students. The completion of Both Hands’ Summer Institute will alert both the teens and community of Trenton to the transformative power of art and bring us closer to allowing the people of Trenton to access and explore their artistic talents. Too often, the residents of Trenton engage in counterproductive—even self-destructive—behaviors because of the dearth of positive, rewarding activities to do locally. We substitute the boredom that influences mischievous behaviors with something to which everyone can look forward with optimism, enthusiasm, and pride.
I have been a struggling artist since the age of 4. From innocently doodling on the living room walls to eventually creating murals on the walls of my bedroom. That was my sub-conscious attempt to beautify my ugly home, all the while crying both in my mind and alone in my room as I created. Art was my therapist, especially as I mastered the art of mask-making. In school and in the community, I was the leader of virtually everything. Advocating for my peers in the board of education, being a teen representative in the Government Gang task force, President of the Student body and a dozen more duties were the coats of paint that I added habitually onto the mask to cover what was really going on with me. I served as the leader for my community, but wanted badly to get out of my familial turmoil. Where I live, especially in my home, you have to mask your issues to not seem weak. You must cry alone and deal with your emotions another time because there are bigger issues to worry about like, having food to eat, the electricity being turned off, and our home being foreclosed. Although those issues with my family still exist, I have finally “gotten out”, free of stress, alleviated with optimism, and no longer burdened by hopeless restraints. I will stop at nothing to create a habitat of tranquility in such communities where expression is suffocated. Our youth need an outlet through which they can exhaust internal feelings. With art, as with my heart and my willingness to learn more, there are no parameters. My career plan started at age four when I fell in love with the Arts. I have a resilient will to pay this passion forward; to provide the youth of Trenton with a chance to explore unwarranted areas and pull out exuberant discoveries. This journey of mine started with a paintbrush in my living room, and will move to paint my community with vibrancy and a new joie de vivre for every soul in Trenton by providing what I love most for whom I am most passionate: the youth.