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• Chapel Hill High School <br /> • Carrboro High School <br /> • Pace Academy High School <br /> • UNC Chapel Hill <br /> • Duke University <br /> • UNC Charlotte <br /> Proposed Uses of Grant Funds: <br /> Program Summary <br /> Sacrificial Poets is seeking support for the 7th annual Word Rivalry and Fellowship Festival. The <br /> festival will be a day-long event held in May 2015 in which teams representing area high schools will <br /> share their art and stories,witness performances from nationally renowned spoken word poets, and <br /> compete in the Word Rivalry inter-high school poetry slam. Sacrificial Poets will use grant funds to 1) <br /> run at least 5 hours of outreach and spoken word workshops in each of the four area high schools(total of <br /> 20 hours between CHS, CHHS, ECHHS, and Phoenix Academy)to help youth prepare for the festival, <br /> and 2) organize and run the festival at a Chapel Hill-Carrboro community venue. The workshops will be <br /> conducted by Sacrificial Poets' facilitators as well as guest artists and educators from the national spoken <br /> word scene, and will help youth participants craft original works of spoken word poetry to be presented at <br /> the final festival event. This culminating event will be open to the public, and will give youth participants <br /> the opportunity to share their art with their peers and the greater community. <br /> Program Narrative <br /> In 2009 George Yamazawa, a high school student at Jordan High and member of the Sacrificial <br /> Poets youth poetry slam team, organized the first ever intramural poetry slam competition between Jordan <br /> and Hillside high schools in Durham. The event,known as"Word Rivalry",expanded over the next three <br /> years, including new teams of youth poets from Chapel Hill High,Carrboro High,the Durham <br /> Performance Learning Center, and Northern Durham High School. The past two years Sacrificial Poets' <br /> has significantly grown the festival with the support of the Orange County Arts Commission and the <br /> Strowd Roses Foundation. Word Rivalry has now evolved into a day-long festival that includes 14 high <br /> schools from across the Triangle and offers youth a year-round support system to grow as young writers <br /> and performers. <br /> Over the course of the program, participants will learn how to craft and perform original works of <br /> poetry and storytelling that explore their identity and experience, and which utilize powerful figurative <br /> language and performance techniques. The festival is also designed to bring youth from diverse races, <br /> ethnicities, socioeconomic backgrounds,genders, and neighborhoods together to learn about and from <br /> each other through the power of their own stories and voices. We strongly believe that interaction <br /> between high schools must go beyond just sports, and give students the opportunity to build relationships <br /> among themselves through recreation, fellowship, group learning, and creativity. <br /> The program will feature workshops that will be run by highly experienced facilitators from <br /> Sacrificial Poets, along with special guest-facilitated workshops throughout the program that bring in <br /> renowned artists and local community leaders. Workshops will take place at the respective schools during <br /> lunch or after school hours_ The Word Rivalry and Fellowship Festival will be held at a venue in Chapel <br /> Hill or Carrboro,with an expected attendance of over 150 people. Our partnerships with both the school <br /> systems, individual teachers and administrators,and other youth serving organization will help bring a <br /> diverse and talented group of youth to the workshop series, and build on the dynamic youth advocacy and <br />