Watch Tony & DaVena Jordan with Ciara Campbell at TEDxCreativeCoast 2010
Tony and DaVena Jordan are two of Savannah’s most beloved and inspiring non-profit leaders. With over 15 years of experience working in the field of social innovation, the two have developed the area’s leading arts and technology youth development program, AWOL All Walks of Life, Inc.
The mission of AWOL is to promote and provide self-awareness through the use of Poetry, Hip-Hop and Life. Tony founded the organization in 1997 as a student at Savannah State University. What first began as just a group of friends and like-minded individuals that all shared a love for Hip-Hop culture, grew into one of Savannah’s leading spoken word and Hip-Hop based arts organizations.
After leaving school, Tony worked for 10 years with at-risk youth in mental health facilities and throughout the juvenile justice system. Frustrated by what he saw, and reminded of his own troubled childhood, Tony decided to focus AWOL’s mission on providing arts and technology programs to local youth.
DaVena Jordan, (AKA-” The Queen Bee”) is truly the fuel that keeps AWOL running. Servings as the organizations Executive Director since 2003, DaVena has written and managed well over a half a million dollars in public and private contracts in support of the mission of providing youth with a safe space. In 2004 the couple decided to give their day jobs the boot, in pursuit of designing not only a new brand of youth development, but an entirely different type of non-profit, based in creativty and innovation. To date over 400 youth have been served and thousands more encountering AWOL’s numerous arts events. What’s more, is that AWOL has saved the community an estimated 2.4 million dollars by successfully diverting youth away from the juvenile justice system and giving them the opportunity to make film, music and even tinker with computers.
AWOL has been featured in national publications such as Black Enterprise magazine (A Walk on the Tech Side, May 2009), and the George Lucas online publication, Edutopia (AWOL Helps Troubled Students make the Grade, February 2009). The organization has also scored numerous awards including the City Year Comcast Leadership award and most recently the Savannah-Martin Luther King Observance Day Committee Humanitarian of the Year Award.
