We Are Ubuntu: The Youth Speak

Founded in 2006, Ubuntu Arts is a yearly art-making and exhibition project that is coordinated and produced by Ann Tobey, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Juvenile Justice and Youth Advocacy at Wheelock College. The projects are inspired by the spirit of Ubuntu. Loosely translated from the Bantu languages of Sub Saharan Africa, Ubuntu means "I am because you are" (Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 1999). Each year the project uses Ubuntu in the title of the exhibit to lend thematic structure to youth groups as they work to identify and focus on personal/social topics or concerns, conceptualize their ideas, imagine and express their sentiments via the artistic medium, and prepare their works for exhibition. Because Ubuntu is about moral kinship and social responsibility, including this concept in the collaborative process also serves to create a social space in which a sense of interconnectedness prevails.