I met the homie Aaron Duran close to 13 years ago at a San Jose Open Mic,spittin raps at the local coffee shop. We’ve been friends ever since with countless sessions revolving around Hip Hop, cultural, and art and politics. I’ve seen the personal growth from a young MC,to a parent, to now a community organizer trying to fabricate (to make up, invent) a contrast in his native city of Los Angeles. Hes doing this by bringing Hip Hop and digital media to underserved youth through out the urban sectors of Los Angeles’s massive scopes of communities. Their mission is to to empower youth with free programming and to encourage them to turn their passions into career paths they can build on for the rest of their lives. This is how he’s doing it. Aaron along with William Correa are the developers of a successful non-profit ran program based out of East L.
A., and HNDP or tough On Da Paint a street terminology that means give it your all,which teaches young Hip Hop enthusiastic the art of MCing while more importantly keeping these youth off of the streets, promoting healthy life styles away from gangs and at the same time giving them a voice through Hip Hop and digital media... HNDP is expanding their horizons and in the process is fundraising to get $15k. This is why, and HNDP like many Non-Profit programs have witnessed the reality of funding and budget cuts,according to Aaron, this would be eliminated by cutting over head cost, and maximizing outreaching capacity to youth all over the city and this is how; A digital media studio,Hip Hop Non-Profit Taco Truck. Without the tacos. A traveling digital media middle that could travel to any destination in the L.
A. area, bringing the possibilities of giving young people in different communities access to a recording studio and computers with digital art software to communities in L.A. where young people don’t even own computers, and let alone access to creative digital outlets. HNDP also offers workshops to young people on beat making,recording, web coding like Jave Script, or how to write mobile apps. “During the last 5 years we've operated we've seen a number of non profit centers,schools and music venues shut down for lack of funding. One of HNDP's biggest strength's is all we needed to operate at the most basic level was a few laptops and a set of speakers. With the booming food truck trend it dawned on us that building a mobile classroom and performance space in a truck would have a tremendous leg up on traditional workshop venues. For one it would allow us to serve even more students in Los Angeles and beyond by driving to a different location, or multiple locations, or every day of the week. Secondly,with a one time purchase and some light up-preserve, there is very tiny threat that we'll ever be shut down due to not having rent. “ Says Aaron. To donate to HNDP visit https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hndp/hndp-music-truck-mobile-mentorship-to-inspire-new
Source: siliconvalleydebug.org