She’s giving forward by creating programming for Black youth that empowers, engages, and promotes healing from trauma.
Her doctoral research documents that Black teenagers are the most prodigiously traumatized adolescent group because of the persistent racism they experience in schools and in society. As a SAGE Legacy Fellow, Dr. S. Renee Mitchell worked with partners to shape the concept of a culturally nurturing, fugitive space for Black youth – and the larger Black community – that empowers, engages, and reconnects them to their own potential.
Dr. Renee’s proposal eventually blossomed into The Soul Restoration Center (www.TheSoulRestorationCenter.com) where Black youth, elders, and other Black community members can participate in activities that support their creativity, cultural storytelling, entrepreneurship, social justice activism, and career and life goals. The Center is located in the former Albina Arts Center, which was a creative gathering space for Black youth in the 1960s and ’70s, and provides a wide range of activities, including art exhibits, youth open mics, Black Student Union gatherings, live music concerts and plays, even birthday parties for local elders.
The Soul Restoration Center also provides in-depth programming for youth through initiatives such as the Know Thyself Rite of Passage summer internship. Among other things, the internship provides leadership development, community-based service learned opportunities grounded in social justice, and engaging ways to learn about entrepreneurship — all through a lens of culturally relevant and trauma-informed, social-emotional learning. All of the programing is based on evidence-based best practices developed through Dr. Renee’s extensive research into how to empower and energize Black youth. Here are a few comments from Black youth who have attended her summer programming:
”I am learning how to feel and voice my feelings. I am gaining new friendships, learning how to breathe and gaining a new perspective about things I did not learn in school, specifically in Black history.
“I am better understanding the big picture on being an adult and being financially responsible.”
“I was able to connect with elders and youth who taught me things I could never learn in a classroom. Stories of activism, love and grief, and ownership. Black history class taught me about the people who built the people who built me. I learned to lead, trial, and triumph. I learned to voice, to make connections to the world and connect the world to who I am.”
“The SAGE Legacy fellowship is an opportunity to be in community with heart-centered people who are trying to do their part to do good in the word. Together with this supportive community, you will be designing a community benefit project that is grounded in your values, leadership, and sense of purpose.”
Dr. Renee led this important project as the visionary of the nationally award-winning organization I Am M.O.R.E. (Making Ourselves Resilient Everyday). I Am M.O.R.E. is a culturally nurturing, strength and evidence-based program that helps Black youth move through the world as joyful and empowered change agents for themselves and for others.
When Dr. Renee was growing up, school was a place of constant suffering, trauma, and isolation. She was spit on, bullied, shunned, beat up and told she was not “college material.” Now as an activist, artist, teacher, and leader, she helps kids who have spent their whole life in survival mode to heal through art, connection, storytelling, and belonging. Because of her work, she has created a national example by helping others use their creativity to let go, gather up, and move on to find their voice, sense of purpose, and place in the world.