Cover image: Gordon Parks Academy student photographs model
© Entrée to Black Paris

On June 25, I will present a continuing education Webinar for the Travel Institute entitled "Giving Back - The Entrée to Black Paris Cultural Awareness Program." Attendees will be encouraged to consider how they can attract clients while giving back to society by partnering with a nonprofit organization and earn two Continuing Education Units for joining the call.

I first wrote about ETBP Cultural Awareness in October 2023. At that time, our collaboration with the Wells International Foundation (WIF) had been running for three years.

Today, I'm providing an update on the program's activities.

Our work with Going Global with Barbara (GGwB) continues to bear fruit.  Entrée to Black Paris supported the company's International Youth Leadership Program by providing the women-centric version our Black History in and around the Luxembourg Garden walk to the November 2023 cohort of 9 female African-American high school students and our Black Paris after World War II walk to the April 2024 cohort of 7 male African-American middle and high school students. 

GGwB is organizing a chaperone trip to Paris in September 2024 and two student excursions to Paris in November 2024.  ETBP Cultural Awareness will support all of them.

The April 2024 all-male cohort was a first for GGwB, and recruiting the participants for the excursion was difficult.

Going Global with Barbara April 2024 cohort - students and chaperones
Image courtesy of Going Global with Barbara

Thanks to our 25 years of experience working with study abroad groups, we were able to corroborate GGwB President Barbara Eubanks' observation that it is tough to get Black male youth to enroll in study abroad programs.  As a result, WIF and GGwB decided to co-host a series of free, online panel discussions called "Increasing the Participation of Black Male Youth in International Travel and Study Abroad Programs" to gather information about why the reticence exists and develop a network of allies who are dedicated to reversing this situation.

The first session, which was held on March 27, 2024, focused on the Black male high school student.  Over 200 people registered for the call, and engagement during the Q&A segment of the event was lively.  Comments made during that segment inspired the topics for subsequent panel discussions.

Click HERE to meet our event moderators and panelists as well as to access the recording from this event.

Our second session was held on June 5, 2024.  It focused on the Black male college student.  Again, discussion was lively and informative.  The recording for this event will be made available in the coming days.

Our third session will focus on the "non-college-bound" Black male student. It is scheduled for September 18, 2024.  To register for this session, click HERE. 

The most recent ETBP Cultural Awareness project served middle school students from Gordon Parks Academy (GPA) in Wichita, KS.  Nine students from the school were accompanied by parents, educators, and chaperones as they walked in the footsteps of legendary photographer, filmmaker, and classical music composer Gordon Parks. 

San Jose State University Professor Michael Cheers, a respected protégé of Parks and a long-time advocate for Parks’ legacy, conceived the excursion.  He trained the hand-selected students to hone their street and fashion photography skills as part of a book-writing and video documentary project entitled Why I Needed Paris.

We provided a customized version of our Grandest of Avenues tour for this group, including a new stop and multiple new images that evoked Parks' 2-year stint as a photojournalist for Life Magazine in 1950-1952.

Gordon Parks Academy students on Grandest of Avenues walking tour
© Entrée to Black Paris

Part of the students' assignment was to photograph two professional models alongside French youth from the 18th arrondissement.  Professor Cheers dubbed this event "The Great Photography Shoot Out."   We collaborated with the French nonprofit organization Image In to make this vision a reality. 

Gordon Parks Academy student photographs model
© Entrée to Black Paris

Gordon Parks Academy students photograph model
© Entrée to Black Paris

Aniya Hamilton is temporarily stepping back from curating content for our ADCI Paris social media platforms because she has been selected to serve as a project officer for the Programming of the Experience for International Dignitaries during the Paris 2024 Olympics.

WIF Volunteer Aniya Hamilton
Image courtesy of Aniya Hamilton

Congratulations, Aniya!

If you know of youth, youth organizations, and/or educational institutions that would benefit from learning about ETBP Cultural Awareness, please share this blog post with them or write to Entrée to Black Paris to make an introduction!