Grantee Database

THE AJA PROJECT

Grant Year

2026-27

Grant Program

Arts and Youth

Award Amount

$17,500.00

Project Description

With support from the California Arts Council, The AjA Project will deliver Civil Liberties, a visual and media arts-based creative youth development program that centers and amplifies the voices of youth from San Diego’s refugee and immigrant communities, the majority of whom live in historically underinvested neighborhoods. These youth, whose lives are impacted by current immigration policies and the surge in enforcement, are guided by teaching artists to explore the historical significance of Japanese American incarceration during WW2. They forge connections to their personal stories and the current struggles for civil liberties taking place today. The program culminates in a youth-led public exhibition featuring participants’ first-person narratives and perspectives, where the wider San Diego community is invited to learn, reflect on, and discuss ongoing issues.

Organization Summary

The AjA Project has a strong reputation of delivering high-quality, high-impact programs to young people from diverse cultural, ethnic, and socio-economic backgrounds. This includes in-school and after-school programs as well as participatory workshops in collaboration with cross-sector partner organizations. AjA’s programs support young people to process experiences, understand their social and political landscapes and use the arts as a tool for creative self expression and social change. This year we have provided programming to newly arrived refugees, teen mothers, youth in detention, young people in military families, and youth across San Diego. The work at AjA remains grounded in the power of photography and visual arts as a tool for all youth, regardless of background, to see themselves as agents of change. AjA remains committed to igniting individual and social change from a grassroots, creative approach.

Organization

THE AJA PROJECT

Address

4504 51st Street

San Diego

92115

County

San Diego

Region

Far South

Website

Email

Congressional District

California's 51st congressional district

State Assembly District

District 78

State Senate District

District 39

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