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The Black Eyed Peas Peapod Foundation will be creating two new state-of-the-art music and media academies for youth in Oakland and Redwood City, California with the help of the Adobe Foundation.

The purpose of this joint venture is to provide the youth with access to multi-media production tools that are a necessity to produce video, dance, music and art. This opportunity should be able to promote awareness of social disparities to teens within the community and help to inspire needed social change.

“As a group, music has given us amazing opportunities. With the Peapod Foundation, we want to give back to inner-city kids so they can realize their potential through artistic and digital expression,” says will.i.am, who grew up in the projects in Boyle Heights, Calif. “Together with the Adobe Foundation, we are giving more kids a chance at a better future.”

Expected to open its doors on August 1, the Black Eyed Peas will be in attendance for the ribbon cutting ceremony and will launch the first integrated Peapod Adobe Youth Voices Academy which will be positioned at the Mervin G. Morris Clubhouse of the Boys and Girls Club in Redwood City. The second academy will be operated by Art in Action, a local non-profit leadership program that is located in Oakland. The academies should be open to the youth sometime in the fall as 200 youth are expected to be participants in the programs.

“The Adobe Foundation and the Peapod Foundation share a vision for empowering youth to address social issues that directly affect them,” said Michelle Mann, executive director of the Adobe Foundation. “The launch of these two academy sites is just the beginning of our journey. It’s exciting to make such a direct, tangible impact by inspiring youth to demonstrate their potential and take action in their communities.”

After the opening of the academy, the Hip-Hop group will also appear at the Adobe Youth Voices Live event which will be the closer of the first annual Adobe Youth Voice Summit. The event spanned for three days and was able to gather 100 youth and educators from unprivileged communities across the globe.

Adobe Youth Voices serves as an outlet for the youth to express themselves which can come in the form of documentary film-making, photography, print journalism and many more. This global network has spanned out to 31 countries and has gained over 20,000 youth participants. Molding young minds has found yet another means.