FELLOW SPOTLIGHT: YAFFA FAIN
YAFFA FAIN
Assistant Cultural Development Officer, City of Worcester
Region: Central Massachusetts
The 2023-2024 Advocacy and Organizing Fellowship cohort is a collective of arts and culture leaders, practitioners, and activists from distinct communities across Massachusetts. While they spend the year incubating and implementing plans to address the unique needs of local or statewide creative communities, MASSCreative is proud to share their reflections on their projects and learnings.
This reflection is offered by fellow Yaffa Fain. Yaffa is the Assistant Cultural
Development Officer for the City of Worcester’s Cultural Development Division and she also staffs the Worcester Cultural Coalition in Worcester, Massachusetts. Yaffa was recently acknowledged as one of Worcester’s Women to Watch 2024. She is using her fellowship experience to advocate for youth access to public space and creative resources in Worcester and beyond.
REFLECTION FROM YAFFA:
This work is life work.
It is continuous, all-encompassing, community-driven, tedious, and joyful work. We do it together, because through advocacy and organizing, we build a vision for our collective future that is creative, affirming, and optimistic for our little pieces of the world.
Some days I feel so overwhelmed by all the change I wish to see in the world, that I do not know where to begin or how to get there. I wonder if tiny steps or big leaps are enough to inject hope into a future that’s equitable, sustainable, and livable. I dream that efforts in Worcester - the city where I live, work, and have called ‘home’ for 10+ years - will catalyze change across the Commonwealth … and one day, far beyond.
Since the work doesn’t end, we must begin and continue to do the work together. That’s where the MASSCreative Advocacy & Organizing Fellowship has most fortified my resilience and hopefulness in these tiny steps and big leaps.
“Over the course of this year, I worked alongside nine fellows who believe in a world which I too want to live in. A place of inclusive public space, complete streets, creative activists, community identity and equity abound.”
I engaged with, workshopped besides, and dialogued among dozens of creatives from across Massachusetts, who are also building this change. To me, this is what it means to be in fellowship with others. We are doing the work, and together, we are becoming the creative engineers, architects, dreamers and organizers of a model arts and culture ecosystem.
As a relatively young person, I intrinsically recognize the changemaking potential that young people possess; moreover, I am fortunate enough to live in a city where young people compose a substantial proportion of the population. In fact, 19.5% of the Worcester populace are youth under the age of 18, according to the United States Census Bureau (2023). Through 7 years of working with the City of Worcester on a plethora of creative activations, events and programs, I have encountered hundreds of talented young creatives from our local Worcester Youth Poets Laureate to participants in the Create 508 Youth Program to everyday young people developing imaginative projects in their neighborhoods. The folks who provide me with the most faith in the future are youth, as they continue to innovate, grow, mobilize, and activate ingeniously.
Through my Advocacy & Organizing Fellowship work, titled the Worcester Creative Youth Advocacy Project, I set out to address concerns voiced by Worcester's youth regarding access to public spaces and creative opportunities.
Through careful review of the current creative landscape and examination of Worcester’s youth sector, including interactive facilitated activations with Worcester youth, I am exploring dynamic responses to local youth’s feedback, opportunities to increase equitable access to public space for young people, systemic solutions to barriers cited by youth, and recommendations that may be integrated into the City of Worcester’s Cultural Plan (2019), City Council agenda, and other creative advocacy platforms.
Through my research, engagement with Worcester youth, and assessment of the local creative environment, I am seeking solutions to make Worcester a more welcoming, inclusive, and accessible City for young people to improve dynamic access to public space, civic engagement resources and opportunities for creative changemaking. I welcome collaboration and input.
I am tremendously grateful to the MASSCreative team – Emily, Richeline, and Kelsey – for continued mentorship and support and for fortifying a network of creativity, activism, and collaboration statewide.
Additionally, I am thankful to be work-ing alongside my co-fellows, who ignite my passion to continue and grow my gratitude for our collective work. Cheers to our next generation of creators, innovators and organizers!
Let’s do this work together:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/yaffa-fain
City of Worcester Cultural Development Division: Cultural Development | City of Worcester, MA (worcesterma.gov).
Worcester Cultural Coalition: http://www.worcesterculture.org/
