Be Loud Studios Youth Voice Festival Features Young Artists

NEW ORLEANS (press release) – Be Loud, a nonprofit organization dedicated to amplifying youth voices, will host the 2nd annual Youth Voice Festival at Baldwin Books and Co. on March 23 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The free festival features young voices from across New Orleans expressed in different mediums: podcast, dance, art, and spoken word (to name a few). Be Loud has supported twelve teachers and their classes by equipping them with resources, funding, and coaching to produce meaningful audio content–primarily podcasts– through the Pass the Mic Fellowship

These teacher fellows and their students will showcase their work at the festival. 

The Pass the Mic projects represent more than 300 New Orleans students. These stories include everything from audio essays on what it means to be a teen to elementary school creative writers telling fictional stories. Teachers and students use their voices to elevate crucial dialogues in our community. 

“I want my students to send their stories to people in their home countries,” says Lilliana Raphael, an ESL teacher at New Harmony High, who is featured at the festival. “I’m hopeful their families will hear these stories and the New Orleans community will listen. We need more people to hear the perspectives of these high schoolers, who are new to the city, and take in what they are saying, feeling, and seeing.”

The Youth Voice Festival will also feature the work of young people from over 10 partner organizations including Dancing Grounds826 New OrleansKID smART, and New Orleans Children and Youth Planning Board, to name a few. This dynamic group of organizations provides a variety of ways for youth to express themselves and build community for youth.

“The Youth Voice Festival promotes what we should be doing every day for the youth in our community–listening to them,” says Youth Voice Festival Organizer Stephanie Oliver. “ We have young people who are speaking and creating in vulnerable ways, and we have a real responsibility to hear them and make change based on what they say.” 

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