Lavie Raven- Program Director/Project Coordinator

Lavie Raven is a social studies and language arts instructor at Kenwood Academy (a Chicago public high school), and the Minister of Education for the University of Hip-Hop. Having taught in the school system for ten years and done community arts work for seventeen years, Raven has created strategies for applying hip-hop as community service and classroom education. He has worked with youth on many community hip-hop arts programs and social justice projects, for groups such as Habitat for Humanity, Pogranizce (Borderlands Project), the Southwest Youth Collaborative, the Chicago Park District, the University of Chicago, the Chicago Public Schools, and numerous other organizations. Raven has also done community mural projects in Sejny, Poland; Oakland, California; Alert Bay British Columbia; and Pine Ridge, South Dakota. As one of the founders of the University of Hip-Hop, a multi-disciplinary school of the street arts, Raven helped to create a dozen charter branches that serve youth across the city of Chicago and throughout the nation. As a certified teacher of social studies and English, grades 7-12, Raven has taught courses in World Studies, African-American History, Argument and Debate, and English, levels I-IV. In his experience as an educator Raven has assisted youth in addressing issues of social justice through the public arts and community service-learning projects. As a mural artist he has worked with youth to create murals that have been displayed at museums, cultural centers, and community organizations. Raven provides youth with a multi-disciplinary approach toward life that holistically engages their academic skills, celebrates their talents and artistic abilities, and empowers his students’ desires to bring positive change to society. In his work for local, national, and international communities, Lavie Raven continually strives to spearhead unconventional and prolific youth empowerment projects in and out of the classroom.