January 17, 2024
UPDATE
Apple unveils 2024 Black Unity Assortment supporting grantees that encourage resilience and creativity
REJI grantee Shout Mouse Press elevates underrepresented voices in kids’s literature
In Washington, D.C.’s historic Dupont Circle neighborhood, the workplace of youngsters’s literature nonprofit Shout Mouse Press is abuzz with the voices of passionate younger folks sitting earlier than numerous stacks of books on tall white cabinets. Final yr, Apple awarded Shout Mouse a grant via its Racial Fairness and Justice Initiative (REJI) in recognition of the nonprofit’s dedication to amplifying various youth voices.
With the launch of the 2024 Black Unity Assortment, Apple is awarding grants to the Boys & Women Golf equipment of America, Studio Museum in Harlem, Battersea Arts Centre, Artwork Gallery of New South Wales, Ghetto Movie College, and the Nationwide Museum of African American Music. Apple’s help for these organizations is a continuation of REJI grants that useful resource organizations dedicated to offering financial, academic, and artistic alternatives in communities of coloration world wide.
Based in 2014, Shout Mouse was established to deal with the shortage of range in kids’s literature by participating younger folks in communities underrepresented in publishing.
“The title ‘Shout Mouse’ began with the concept of how can we make seen and concrete one thing that was not being heard, and provides it a megaphone,” says Kathy Crutcher, the nonprofit’s founder. “Apple’s help has allowed us to deepen our funding in younger folks — to supply expertise, skilled growth, and most significantly, affirmation and amplification of their important views.”
On this brisk afternoon in late December, Shout Mouse has convened three alumni authors — Sasa Aakil, 20; Andy Pina, 19; and Sholachauntel Shoda, 25 — and one in all its illustrators, Ian L. Springer, 25, for a brainstorm on character growth. The subject of dialogue: Who’s lacking from as we speak’s youth literary canon of Black historical past?
“A variety of instances we see Black Historical past Month simply from one lens, or from three or 4 totally different historic figures,” Springer says to the group.
“Even the tales of Black girls in Black historical past particularly — they had been so pivotal however so typically not talked about, apart from Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks,” provides Aakil, a poet and the coauthor of Shout Mouse’s award-winning I Am the Night time Sky, who writes concerning the intersectionality of dwelling as a Black Muslim American girl.
Via its writing workshops, the books it publishes, and talking alternatives held in partnership with youth-centered organizations within the D.C. space, Shout Mouse is harnessing the creativity and resilience of younger folks, and equipping them with the talents wanted to navigate the publishing business and past.
“Oftentimes younger individuals are advised that they’re not the consultants of their very own expertise, or that they aren’t but geared up to touch upon or impression the world round them,” explains Alexa Patrick, Shout Mouse’s packages director, who’s main the afternoon’s brainstorm. “So what we search to do is invite younger folks into an area the place they’re in a position to be the consultants of their very own expertise and to share their tales.”
Sasa Aakil, who was awarded Youth Poet Laureate of Montgomery County in Maryland and is a present faculty pupil at Howard College, participated in Shout Mouse’s writing workshop with Muslim American youth. For 10 days, she and 9 friends gathered to brainstorm, write, and create content material about their lived experiences.
“Me and my fellow artists actually felt like we needed to make a press release of who we’re,” Aakil says. “I actually wished to spotlight that being Black American and Muslim was okay, and never solely okay, however that it was a factor, as a result of lots of people wish to erase my folks. So the mission assertion that we got here up with was actually simply taking on area.”
I Am the Night time Sky, the anthology that resulted from the workshop, is only one instance of Shout Mouse’s bold intention to amplify tales by and for members of the communities the nonprofit reaches.
Since its launch, Shout Mouse has printed 59 books, all produced in collaboration with younger folks and native community-based companions. There are at present greater than 125,000 Shout Mouse books in circulation, which could be present in D.C.-area colleges and nonprofits, in addition to in colleges, libraries, bookstores, and houses in each state within the nation. The nonprofit additionally helps put the books within the fingers of immigrant kids separated from their households.
Lots of Shout Mouse’s books had been conceived, written, and illustrated by youth in response to the cultural moments of their time. Thanks partially to the work of Shout Mouse, these moments have been captured in literature that every one kids can learn and revel in as a part of fashionable American historical past.
“Once we don’t have various tales and various voices, we miss issues,” Aakil says. “There are such a lot of experiences that we’ve simply by no means gotten to expertise as a result of we’re caught to our personal our bodies. So it’s so essential to have tales, as a result of that’s one of many best methods to empathize with one another. And after we can empathize, we will make area for each other.”
Apple Celebrates Black Resilience with New Black Unity Assortment
The brand new Black Unity Assortment introduces new expressions impressed by the resilience and fantastic thing about the Black group. Blooming flowers and vibrant colours symbolize Pan-Africanism and symbolize generations working collectively to deal with injustice and dismantle systemic limitations.
The Apple Watch Black Unity Sport Band options an association of flowers molded abstractly throughout the band using crimson, inexperienced, and yellow colours. Impressed by the wealthy cultural range of Black communities world wide, Apple used a novel layering course of for the flowers to create tiny variations in every band’s design, making certain no two bands are precisely alike. The pin of the band is coated with a sturdy diamond-like carbon end that options an etching of the phrases “Reality, Energy, Solidarity” alongside one in all 4 symbolic flower emblems.
The Unity Bloom Apple Watch face showcases a lovely floral design that signifies a long-lasting dedication to the pursuit of a extra equitable world. Customers can select between a full-bloom or single-bloom association, and once they elevate their wrist, the flowers start to bloom and fill with vibrant hues. iPhone and iPad customers may also present their help with the brand new Unity Bloom wallpaper for his or her Lock Display, which presents an overview of flowers that fill with coloration when the show is energetic.
Pricing and Availability
- The Black Unity Sport Band is offered for order on apple.com and within the Apple Retailer app beginning as we speak, and shall be out there in choose Apple Retailer areas starting January 23 for $49 (U.S.).
- The Black Unity Sport Band is offered in 41mm or 45mm, and S/M or M/L, worldwide.
- The Unity Bloom watch face shall be out there subsequent week, and requires Apple Watch Sequence 4 or later operating watchOS 10.3.
- The brand new Unity Bloom iPhone and iPad wallpaper for the Lock Display will even be out there subsequent week, and requires iPhone Xs or later operating iOS 17.3 and iPad (sixth technology and later), iPad mini (fifth technology and later), iPad Air (third technology and later), 12.9-inch iPad Professional (2nd technology and later), 10.5-inch iPad Professional, and 11-inch iPad Professional (1st technology and later) operating iPadOS 17.3.
About Apple’s 2024 REJI Grantees
Boys & Women Golf equipment of America
Boys & Women Golf equipment of America is growing the following technology of innovators and group leaders by designing alternatives for members to code, create, and join with group. The Boys & Women Golf equipment of America know the facility of providing alternatives to younger folks by serving to them construct technical and real-life expertise to efficiently enter and form the workforce of tomorrow. Boys & Women Golf equipment of America is predicated in Atlanta, with areas throughout the U.S., on Native lands, and on navy bases world wide.
Studio Museum in Harlem
The Studio Museum in Harlem is the nexus for artists of African descent regionally, nationally, and internationally, and for work that has been impressed and influenced by Black tradition. It’s a web site for the dynamic alternate of concepts about artwork and society. The museum is equally engaged as a cultural anchor in Harlem, and as a presiding affect and thought chief for the worldwide artwork world.
Battersea Arts Centre
Based mostly in London, Battersea Arts Centre creates welcoming and inclusive areas the place communities, artists, and audiences can join and be inventive.
Artwork Gallery of New South Wales
The Djamu Youth Justice Program on the Artwork Gallery of New South Wales helps Indigenous folks within the youth justice system by creating significant connections to artwork and tradition. Forging constructive relationships between these younger folks and members of the Aboriginal and Nice Oceans arts group, the Sydney-based program supplies mentorship and vocational pathways post-release.
Ghetto Movie College
Ghetto Movie College educates, develops, and celebrates the following technology of nice storytellers via movie and media, with areas in New York Metropolis, Los Angeles, and London.
The Nationwide Museum of African American Music
Positioned in Nashville, Tennessee, the Nationwide Museum of African American Music is the one museum of its form devoted to educating the world via preserving and celebrating the central position African Individuals play in creating the American soundtrack.
Press Contacts
Eric Hollister Williams
Apple
e_hollisterwillia@apple.com
Aushawna Collins
Apple
aushawna@apple.com
Apple Media Helpline
media.help@apple.com
