2022
L & K
E & A
A huge part of our mission here at Start the Wave is to FUND ACTION. We do this by redistributing money to projects that have a clear vision of creating a better world through well thought out action. Thanks to the generosity of our donors, we are able to financially support grassroots initiatives around the world that are focused on creating positive and impactful change. See the beautiful initiatives we have been able to fund on the page below.
STONO is an interspecies performance in which participants are guided to explore the 1739 Stono Slave Rebellion through the voices of its beyond-human participants. This piece–and its accompanying educational modules–will animate radical Black histories in the Americas and offer a space for humans to better connect with the natural and spiritual entities that share our world.
Science is a Drag is the world’s first fully science-themed drag show. Starting in 2019, it was created to challenge cis-heteronormative stereotypes of scientists and archaic notions of professionalism, and to provide a safe and empowering platform for queer scientists to feel creative and unrestricted in their efforts to communicate science. Further, it provides a safe and accessible space for the LGBTQ2IA+ community and its allies to engage with science without fear of exclusion or judgment.
Inspired by vaudeville, presentations have included stand-up, lip sync medleys, dance, live DNA extractions and even using RuPaul’s Drag Race clips to expertly explain antibiotic resistance! Our performers have showcased some of the most creative examples of science engagement that project partner RCIScience has seen in its 170+ year history.
Over half of our audience from previous events stated that they’d never attended a science-themed event in the past and would not have attended were it not a drag event. Almost 90% reported feeling more comfortable at Science is a Drag than typical science events and all claimed they’d return to a future show. As our audience put it, “This show/initiative is so awe-inspiring and important” and, “wish all my science classes were like this!”
We are going to build a free-of-charge medical center for children with disabilities in every region in Northern Perú. We will serve 4,000 children with disabilities each year, most of whom have never been seen by a doctor and do not have the financial means or a family to care for them. We will also implement projects to improve their quality of life and protect their rights.
Our vision is to support individuals who have been in catastrophic level car accidents with a healing and regenerative process whereby through a series of mental strength pillars they will remember that “Miracles are Possible!”. This process is backed by the core of:
– Self Inquiry
– Belief
– Action
Along the way participants will be supported by gaining access to insights about healing foods, breath work and movement techniques.
Komunal Market is an alternative market which directly sources its products from peasant farmers. We procure the produce at a rate higher that the usual farmgate so that the farmers can earn more. Compared to the prevailing system of land and market monopoly here in the Philippines where food producers merely receive scraps for the produce they worked hard to harvest. Usually, traders and landlords buy their products at a rate so low that it sometimes leaves them in debt after accounting all the expenses they shelled out.
Moreover, Komunal Market is also an agrarian reform advocate fighting for free land distribution to our farmers. We believe that national food security can be achieved once farmlands have been reclaimed from its landlords and distributed to its actual tillers. We can then produce food, not geared for export, but for national consumption.
ADHD Babes is a community group for Black Women and Non-Binary people with ADHD. We create safer spaces for us to flourish and live our lives to their greatest potential.
ADHD Babes is run by us and for us, with all members of our team being from our community. We aim to empower and encourage all members to build peer support networks, share lived experiences and embrace their neurodiversity as a community.
We aim to inspire and empower people with community, tools, learning and healing spaces to redefine and understand ADHD, allowing us to tackle its difficulties and utilise its strengths.
We aim to create an accessible platform and safer spaces for us to connect, learn and break down the barriers that restrict our community from gaining and understanding a diagnosis of ADHD.
We aim to create a society that embraces neurodiversity. We aim to raise awareness and educate people on the truth and reality of how ADHD affects neurodiverse people, and how best to support them.
Green Valley Project is a movement by young people to make a difference in repairing our environment. Whether it’s planting trees, removing invasive species, or restoring damaged habitat, we want to create a healthier ecosystem for birds, bees, butterflies, fish, turtles, and humans. We promote youth environmental leadership and activism through educational programs, volunteer opportunities, and internships.
“Areito: Taino Voices” is an Indigenous virtual monthly gathering that features two different invited Taino guest speakers each month ranging from artists, activists, teachers, academics, etc. It is organized and hosted by artist and activist Ra Ruiz Leon (Taino-Borikua) and educator Gladys Yacely Aponte (Taino-Kiskeya). Taino people are one of several Indigenous groups in the Caribbean and have been resisting colonization since 1492 when Europeans arrived on our shores. Ra and Yacely began this virtual gathering in January of 2021 as a way for the Taino community to stay connected. Today Taino people live and work all over the world but remain connected to their ancestral homelands in the Caribbean (Cuba, Boriken aka Puerto Rico, Ayiti aka Haiti, Kiskeya aka Dominican Republic, Xamaica aka Jamaica, Bahamas). Areito is our word for ceremony and it is one of the ways that we maintain our culture alive and seek harmony with our mother earth. Our virtual Areito gives Taino people an opportunity to hear about other Taino people who are doing amazing work, and a way to stay connected to one another even in the face of a pandemic and/or distance. It is also an opportunity for Indigenous Caribbean folks who are looking to reconnect to their Indigeneity to learn new things and find community. For a year and a half this event has ran monthly without any funds. It is all volunteer work done with a lot of love and passion, however it has been a big goal to secure funds to be able to compensate all involved for their time, energy, and expertise. The community that tunes in each month has grown, proving that it holds a special place in many peoples hearts because they can stay connected to their culture and community through this virtual space and time. At the end of our gatherings we play a game called Taino Trivia, where we ask a question related to our session and the first person to get the answer correctly wins a gift. It can range from a Taino sticker to Taino jewelry, all made by Taino artists. We seek to support and uplift our people as much as we can.
To enable young people from the South Asian Diaspora within disadvantaged and poor areas of London, to take ownership of their narratives in terms of their history, culture and identity. To empower them through positive self identity to harness their gifts of creativity to explore and create a better future for themselves within their local communities and beyond.
This projects’ core vision is for young people of colour from the South Asian Diaspora to feel seen, to feel heard and to feel worthy of representation in their communities. Through creative expression of WORD-SOUND-POWER and POETRY, they will overcome feelings of oppression and marginalisation.
AIR, being short for the Arts Initiative for Refugees, complies to provide refugee youth with sessions, programs and opportunities to help them achieve artistic and personal success through teaching and mentorship. AIR offers individualized and group mentoring programs to its students designed for their unique interest in the arts field of their choice. AIR will also have approved guest speakers to meet with and talk to the students about certain topics. It also provides personal and emotional support and guidance, in order to cultivate its students’ growth. The immediate objective of this program is to expand into a multifaceted foundation with locations across the state that provides unique opportunities and chances for refugees that may not have the resources or means to achieve their artistic goals. The ultimate goal of AIR is to branch out to become a small-scale, national/international non-profit organization.
Corporación Otra Escuela (Spanish acronym COE) is a non-governmental organization with 21 years of experience in training, raising awareness, and promoting peace education pedagogies and culture. We have offices in Bogotá (Cundinamarca, Colombia), Santander de Quilichao (Cauca, Colombia), Madrid (Spain), [and are] composed of a multidisciplinary team working on issues around the construction of peace education pedagogies and culture in different regions of Colombia and in other countries.
Our heart (mission) is to train around the Culture of Peace, starting from peace education, through art, cooperative play, and neuroconvivencia [new current that studies the brain’s biological functions and emotional reactions, and how these are changed by an individual’s social and cultural experiences]. And our dream (vision) is that by 2030 Otra Escuela will be a national and international model for the development of innovative pedagogies and methodologies in the field of peace education and building a peace culture.
To heal, grow, and transform the LGBTQ2IA+ community. Our vision: We nourish each other, we are antiracist, multiracial LGBTIQ+ people and allies, we are independent from the oppressive world, and interdependent amongst ourselves, we have power as a united group, we resolve conflicts through transformative justice and authentic dialogue.
Birth Comadres Doula Collective offer postpartum care that feels like home away from home for undocumented people of the area. This includes preparing postpartum care packages, body care sessions and holding space for birth processing with awareness and sensitivity to their culture and traditions.
The mission of our project is to uplift Black community members living in supportive housing, while creating a circle of community care that extends to the far corners of the lower mainland Black community.
Black X Film Festival is a three-day online event started by a collective of Black artists and accomplices to showcase Black creators. Through providing this free event of music and film, we showcase the radical multifaceted expressions of the Black experience by centering Black resilience and a commitment to anti-racism.
BlkArthouse is a social enterprise organization dedicated to promoting and selling work by emerging Black artists. We aim to increase the accessibility of art and representation of Black artists in the global market.
Re-tribalize communities through ceremonial kinships that are tied to the land we currently occupy by helping us maintain and share our healing ceremonies through collectively learning how to build and conduct the sweatlodge ceremony, with help from Kalpulli Ayolopaktzin. Building sweatlodges is also part of our sustainability efforts.
Intentional, Intersectional, Intergenerational PLAY! will offer a space for a community of individuals historically excluded from traditional theatre and media spaces, to come together with the express purpose of creative healing through play.
Medicine Wheels is a new Seeding Sovereignty mutual aid and creative arts youth initiative that has grown from our Indigenous Impact Rapid Response Initiative that launched at the start of the pandemic and provided immediate some 200,000 pieces of PPE, food for Indigenous Elders and unsheltered relatives and supplies to communities across some 60 tribal nations.
Pink Flamingo Presents! The podcast where we talk about art + queerness + race + gender + justice, and what life is like when your existence is intersectional post the dumpster fire that was 2020.
For too long family dysfunction, problematic alcoholism or substance use, and mental health have not been acknowledged across South Asian communities. The South Asian Healing Network aims to tackle these issues by creating a safe environment for self-expression, peer support, and cultural/community learning for South Asian youth ages 15-30.
T4T Caregiving is a group of trans caregivers and doulas who provide guidance, emotional support, postoperative care, and medical advocacy for trans and nonbinary people having gender-affirming surgeries. We provide various community resources and guidance with navigating the surgical process completely free of charge.
Our mission is to promote community awareness about urban gardening, medicinal plants, & terrariums; to simply bring back greenery in our modern society. We strive to create alternative methods of planting / growing medicinal & ornamental plants, and remind people that there are many simple ways to grow plants in today’s urban life.
Divergent Dance is an online project based in Tacoma, that seeks to create, inform and most importantly collaborate with the Irish dance community on how gender and sexuality exists through performance in the community.
Drag King Bilingual Story Time—where D.R.A.G. signifies Dancing, Reading, Arte (Art) y Ganas (Movement & Empowerment)!—serves to create family-friendly events that help enrich a child’s development while promoting inclusion. Drag King Bilingual Story Time is the family friendly project direct from the minds of Los MENtirosos Drag Kings, San Antonio’s only all Latinx Drag King troupe.
The Greenburgh Community Garden in Yonkers, will provide an experiential learning space for students to learn about gardening and the benefits of eating healthy, local foods. Funds will go towards materials for raised beds, fencing, seeds and plants, and a compost bin.
HeartCharged will provide care packages and patient-to-patient support to young people newly-diagnosed with a heart condition or newly-bionic with a defibrillator. These packages will include a reusable water bottle, motivational/inspirational/educational posters, contact information, and other care items.
This project will create and distribute care packages to individuals struggling with homelessness in Columbus, where the number of people without secure housing has risen rapidly during COVID. Care packages will include socks, water bottles, blankets, clothing, food, and related items.
Through the power of storytelling, the Imperfect Eco-Hero Podcast, based in Toronto, will connect and celebrate eco-heroes across the globe fighting the climate crisis, presenting stories that inspire and deepen our understanding and respect for the planet.
Let’s Go Green Together! is a new kindergarten class that will engage children, parents, and the community in nature and empower them to adopt new habits, reducing waste and pollution.
This Raleigh project is focused on creating effective, developmentally appropriate anti-bias curriculum for young children with and without disabilities through a classroom in a non-profit developmental center for children aged 3-5.
The Ormond Beach Shorebird Recovery Program is a project of the Ventura Audobon Society aimed at protecting Endangered and Threateneds Shorebird species. This funding will help the project build new protective fencing around critical nesting habitats at Ormond Beach.
Piedmont Farm Animal Refuge provides lifelong care to rescued farm animals and promotes veganism by offering knowledge, support, and community. This grant will help the Refuge meet its goal of becoming a solar-powered sanctuary.
“Equal” is a song and music video project that will address gender inequality, homophobia, and transphobia. The project will tackle the issue of representation head on, by creating a piece of digestible media made with the faces and voices of LGBTQ2IA+ at the forefront.
A project to provide winter care packages for inividuals struggling with homelessness in Provo. Care packages will include water, food, clothing, a blanket, personal care items and information on local resources, with information on what each provides and directions.
Allinllam Kachkani is building the first free health care center for children with physical and mental disabilities in the North of Perú. Each month, the center aims to serve 300 children in the Lambayeque Region, providing them with free access to general and specialized medical care.
Back To Earth is a project aimed at bringing two concepts together: environmental and cultural preservation. The project will draw upon Indigenous knowledge of working with the soil and will convey this through a 3D hyperreal animation image exposed by a Hologram projector, to show viewers the spiritual and ecological dimensions of taking care of each natural resource.
Beyond Belief is a podcast, derived from Bad Believer, that focuses on connecting the LGBTQ2IA+ community, discussing religious trauma in our lives and highlighting our reconciliation journey into faith, spirituality and our identity. We also provide financial assistance for those that need immediate help accessing counselling or therapy.
Cognitive spreads awareness about fundamental ethical and ecological values that connect all of humanity by creating inspiring shirt designs to help people think, feel recognized, and empowered, and through educational content and interviews.