Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation hosted DreamBrave, a Statewide Youth Summit on Martin Luther King, Jr day, a historical day of bravery, in Los Angeles. The California Endowment (TCE), in partnership with the California Center for Civic Participation, Movement Strategy Center, Simpson and Associates, and Watson and Associates teamed up with the Born This Way Foundation to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr day as well as President Obama’s inauguration in office for another term. More than 150 young people between the ages of 18-24 from the Building Healthy Communities sites participated in the DreamBrave’s day of bravery, learning tools to spreading the power of knowledge, kindness, encouragement, peace, and most important social equality.
Dr. Robert Ross, TCE President and CEO, exemplified the names of Dr. King, Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi in the continuation of their vision for a better world, equality, justice and stronger relations, as his speech from the event was webcast live.
The event strongly promoted love and encouragement not only to stay true to yourself but love who you are as a human being. DeamBrave hit home for me, a young reporter, in multiple ways. It reminded me that my dreams of being a male designer for women’s clothing or even a male ballet/contemporary dancer is possible, even though it’s out the normal role of a straight male. But better, DreamBrave inspired my interest in true talent and raw creativity.
Beauty filled the hearts of many who filled the seats to look beyond stereotypes and cherish the true beauty of inner happiness and feel boldness to share unique individual personalities to the world, no matter the outcome. As Lady Gaga’s mom and president of the Born this Way Foundation Cynthia Germanotta aka “Mama Gaga” stated to Lady Gaga as a child, “You were born a superstar.”
Gaga curved simple words into reality with knowledge, motivation and vision. With her foundation she encourage youth attending DreamBrave to realize her view of life. With the DreamBrave bus touring across America, she will continue to dare youth to be different in personality, lifestyle, leadership, social justice, dreams and much more.
As Lady Gaga, The Born this Way Foundation, #DreamBrave, TCE, BHC and others exemplified the lives of Amelia Earhart, Thich Quang Duc, Dr. King, Malcom X, Cesar Chavez, Abraham Lincoln and many more. We too have a say in this world, when will it be your time to speak up?
In 2006, over 25 youth began participating in weekly after-school writing workshops where they congregated in the hallway of a two-story building in West Fresno and learned the essentials of creating media and telling their stories. The group evolved over the next five years and is now proudly recognized as The kNOw Youth Media.
Through our program, we create opportunities for our youth participants, who in turn create long-term positive change in their communities. Our approach weaves youth development and youth media innovation to produce our biannual youth publication, multimedia projects, and community forums.
The kNOw began as a project of New America Media, which was the country’s first and largest national collaboration and advocate of 2000 ethnic news organizations. In 2018 The kNOw became a project of Youth Leadership Institute.
