A new chapter of Education Is Not A Crime campaign started in March 2020. We installed a bright yellow bus shelter adorned with original artwork showing a group of children wearing crowns and engaged in educational activities outside of the Lincoln-King Academy in northwest Detroit. The shelter, on the corner of Cheyenne Street and Grove Street, is a collaboration with Detroit’s Communication Education Commission (CEC) which operates Mayor Michael Duggan’s GOAL (Get On And Learn) school bus initiative.

The GOAL line – involving the CEC, charter schools, the Detroit Public Schools Community District, teachers, parents and city leaders – is designed to improve education access and opportunities for local students. The initiative links 14 northwest public and charter schools with a school bus route to increase school attendance and to transport K-8 students to after-school programming at the Northwest Activities Center.

“I am grateful that the team at Education is Not a Crime chose the Community Education Commission and the GOAL line to partner with in Detroit to raise awareness about the importance of art and education in the inner city,” said Stephanie Young, the CEC’s Executive Director. “Students in our transportation and after-school program known as the GOAL line were excited to participate in making the artwork for the shelter and I'm sure can't wait to utilize the shelter and encourage others to check it out.”

The new GOAL bus shelter was installed to offer schoolchildren shelter from the elements as they wait for their GOAL buses – while also inspiring them by displaying locally-produced artwork on uplifting educational themes.

The Education Is Not A Crime campaign produces street art and education workshops to promote education equity and the importance of education as a right for everyone around the world. 

The campaign previously produced 40 murals on five continents to highlight the transforming power of education and to tell the inspiring story of how the persecuted Baha'i religious minority in Iran overcomes education discrimination by creating its own underground university.

The Education Is Not A Crime team have also worked with communities of color in the United States in Atlanta, New York and Detroit. In 2016 the campaign produced 20 murals in Harlem. And one of our largest murals is on the western wall of the Detroit Music Hall on Grand River Avenue and Madison Street.

The campaign was started by Iranian journalist and filmmaker Maziar Bahari, who is not a Baha’i. Bahari has worked with persecuted minority groups in different parts of the world. The Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC will honor his work by giving him the 2020 Elie Wiesel Award in April. Bahari was also the subject of 2014 film Rosewater, directed by Jon Stewart, the former host of the Daily Show.

The new GOAL line shelter produced by Education Is Not A Crime is the start of a new phase of the campaign. Education Is Not A Crime partnered with the CEC, the City of Detroit and Access for All, a construction apprenticeship training program, to build the pilot shelter at Lincoln-King Academy. The installation, led by Access for All, was supported by the Operating Engineers 324 and Ironworkers Local 25 unions in Michigan.

The shelters will also double as art installations for Detroit artists to decorate with the full participation of students who attend the GOAL after-school program. The first GOAL shelter, at the Lincoln-King Academy, includes a glass back with a printing of an original artwork by the local Detroit artist, Asia Hamilton, owner and curator of the Norwest Gallery of Art.

“As an artist and gallery owner from the same zip code as this project, I am extremely grateful to give back to the community I grew up in,” Hamilton said. “It is important for me to encourage and teach children about the arts in schools and in the community – especially since art is the first subject to be cut in an economically challenged school system. The message of education equality that Education Is Not A Crime promotes through its partnership with the GOAL line speaks volumes.”

Access for All, a training scheme that helps dozens of apprentices enter the trades each year, donated its services to install the bus shelter. Financial support for the project was provided by Michigan residents Steve Hamp, former president of the Henry Ford, and Tony Mira, President and CEO of Miramed Global Services.

“We are so proud to work with our partners in Detroit to build this beautiful bus shelter,” said Bahari. “Asia Hamilton’s artwork, which she co-created with a group of students at the Northwest Activity Center, is such a bright and beautiful way to decorate the shelter. The bus shelter, like our murals, is a celebration of education and how it can move individuals, change communities and shape the future of our world.”

Robert HaydeN - our inspiration for detroit

Robert Hayden started life in 1913 in a poor Detroit neighborhood. His perseverance and talents took him to Wayne State University (then called Detroit City College) and later the University of Michigan. He became a poet, trained under W.H. Auden and was made “poet laureate” of the United States. He was the first African-American to hold that role.

Hayden said that man should be “permitted to be man,” that people of any background should have the chance to make the most of their lives. Hayden also later joined the Baha’i Faith.

We are therefore planning thrilled that our first mural in Detroit, at the Allied Media building on Third Street, celebrates the life and achievements of Robert Hayden.

His story captures the spirit of Education Is Not A Crime.

Education Is Not A Crime is operated by Journalism for Change, a US-registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization created in 2014, focusing on creative solutions to social issues while minimizing institutional costs and ensuring sound administration of project funding. Education Is Not A Crime and Journalism for Change were both founded by the Iranian-Canadian journalist and filmmaker Maziar Bahari.