Portland State University Foundation Moving to the Beat

Moving to the Beat has nonprofit status under the umbrella of The PSU Foundation, which has 501(c) (3) status.

The foundation account name is The PSU Foundation Moving to the Beat. Currently we are attempting to connect teens in Africa with teens in the United States to discuss and confront stereotypes by facilitating youth dialogue between teens of both Africa and the USA.

Intern positions for this project will give students the opportunity to contribute their talent and skills, gain experience working on a dynamic team of students, discuss and confront stereotypes, and assist in getting these ideas out to the general community.

The idea behind the team is to market the "Moving to the Beat" movie, edit and format accompanying curriculum, connect the curriculum with another nonprofit project “Speaking Out" , and market the publications.

Since we are a nonprofit organization, we currently have few funds to spend on marketing and hope to give students and community members and opportunity to take part in a project that connects youth of Africa and the USA.

The film and curriculum are based on a documentary. Please see the description below.

In Moving to the Beat, an African American hip-hop group journeys to Freetown, Sierra Leone to discover a spiritual homeland and resurrect Chuck D’s notion of hip-hop as the “black CNN.”

Going against the stereotypes of materialism and misogyny in mainstream rap music, here the language of hip-hop allows for a dialogue between Africans and Black Americans to explore issues of race, gender, war conflict and more, and to confront each side’s stereotype of the other.