Goals & Objectives

The Project Hopes to:

• Address the issue that, presently, there are no memorials or monuments acknowledging the victims of the system of the racially-based slave trade in Yonkers or Westchester County
• Provide the Yonkers community, as well as the County of Westchester, with a testament to its commitment to cross-cultural exposure by creating a public artwork that acknowledges the dignity of enslaved Africans and restores their humanity.
• Employ the arts as an innovative method of education to develop, implement, and support arts-integrated education and employment options for multi-cultural youth
• Expose students to an artistic medium not offered in the public school curriculum
• Allow students to exercise their creative skills and employ what they’ve already learned in school: photography, video, creative writing, etc., to create a documentary as a learning tool for their peers and the community-at-large
• Design a meditative rain garden, which will be a self-sustaining ecosystem
• Add to the enhancement of the downtown Yonkers environment with public art
• Encourage corporate and private funding streams, community-based organizations, and municipal/community leaders to strengthen the creative economy by supporting local arts programming, artists, and art businesses.
• Increase Yonkers’ overall number of cultural visitors, audiences, and lengths of stay