As Nancy Sorrell enthusiastically stated, “If they say it takes a village, we found our village.” Sorrell's daughter attends Project Commotion — PC — a San Francisco nonprofit dedicated to providing a community where children, adults, and educators are able to learn together through movement, sensory experiences and play.
“I will never forget the moment I met Chagua, her handshake, and how she told me she wants to work with my daughter,” Sorrell continued. “Her sincerity rang true, and I have found her dedication matched in the entire staff.”
PC was established by Chagua Camacho-Olguin and Susan Osterhoff, who are both co-directors and instructors in the program. Longtime friends who originally met through Capoeira — an Afro-Brazilian martial art form — the two women were teaching movement classes at a San Francisco gym, and they soon decided to pursue an education in childhood development.
Through coursework at San Francisco Community College, they explored sensory processing and physical development and hands-on work experience with children with special needs and their families. From this, Camacho-Olguin and Osterhoff began to realize the developmental benefits of movement programs with children.
“There’s a pyramid of development. We first develop our senses and who we are physically. Then we start to develop our social selves and how we relate to other people,” Osterhoff explained. “All these things actually make a lot of sense when you’re working with children through movement.”
Osterhoff and Camacho-Olguin’s passion for helping children, combined with an urgent need for physical development programs in the Bay Area's diverse communities, inspired them to develop Project Commotion.
Established as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the organization’s funding is obtained by 50 percent coming from scholarships and 50 percent from member payments. Currently, the city of San Francisco hires and pays the staff, and PC is in the process of looking for a federal grant.
There is help from individuals in the community, including a teacher they worked with at San Francisco City College has connected them to a family foundation; members of Capoeira Ijexá — a Capoeira group where the two women originally met — provide support through fundraising; and there is one individual who donates generously on a continuous basis, among other support sources.
“Everything is a very natural family affair,” Camacho-Olguin observed of PC’s community support. “People have money to pay, but it is not necessary. No one is turned away.”
Dedicated to providing access to programs for all families in the community, regardless of income, PC gives tuition assistance to 50% of the families who participate in their programs — a generosity made possible by the program’s funding support.
Currently, PC is operating its summer 2012 Session, which began June 4 and runs through August 17. Classes are open to all children and youth of all abilities and are based on movement. Led by the co-directors and by PC-trained staff, these classes focus on developing physical and sensory awareness through movement, tumbling, and sensory activities.
“A lot of the exercises involve crossing the midlines of the body. You have a front and a back, a top and a bottom, and a left and a right,” Osterhoff explained. “Moving your body in different ways and crossing these lines develops your sense of physical self. We’ll have the kids spin around. Spinning brings everything together. When you get dizzy, it forces you to pause and readjust, or reacclimatize. This translates to life.”
As parent Allison Young testified, “We feel comfortable knowing that [my son] is with people who understand and encourage his very physical ways of expressing himself. Now he dances around the house and does handstands against the wall!”
In addition to movement, PC uses music and rhythm as a tool to develop. Classes are offered in Guelaguetza Dance, a traditional dance from the southern region of Mexico, and maculelê, a traditional Brazilian stick dance.
“Children begin hearing rhythm inside the mother’s womb. They hear her blood pumping and her heart beating,” described Camacho-Olguin. “So let them yell. That’s music for them. They’re imitating what they hear in the womb. You clap — and this is the heart. They remember.”
And there is an abundance of yelling and happy shouts at Project Commotion’s Harrison Street location. More than this, there is a fresh sense of freedom and safety. During the “Little Ants” class, children from the ages of 9-30 months explore the colorful facility, climbing, playing, and interacting. Each child’s parent or caregiver participates, and Jian, a PC instructor, supervises and offers games and activities.
One small boy, Devin, tosses a beanbag and it lands on a jumping pad above his head and out of his reach. Camacho-Olguin sees, but does not simply retrieve it for him, as most adults would do – the “easiest” solution.
“He won’t learn that way,” she said. “You offer a way for him to get it. You can say, ‘Stand on this’ or ‘Maybe you can use this’, but you don’t do it for him. He won’t remember that. If he gets it himself, he may not remember how he got it, but he will remember that he did.”
“They understand children at a very intimate level,” claimed Teresa Martyny of the educators at PC. “They understand their brain synapses, their muscle memory, what they are communicating underneath the words and actions. They help build children's self confidence and pride when others are tearing them down. I can't recommend the program enough. It was life changing for us.”
Project Commotion is located at 2095 Harrison St. at the corner of 17th Street and can be reached by telephone at 415.252.8059, or by email at info@projectcommotion.org. Their website is www.projectcommotion.org/.
