Author: Dawn Heinen

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Progress Report: Collective Action for Creative Youth Development

[UPDATE: A complete timeline of the Partnership’s progress is available online.]

Funding

Conference Presentations, Professional Development, and Networking

  • The 2nd annual Creative Youth Development track at the Guild’s 2015 Conference for Community Arts Education in Philadelphia featured the keynote address, “A Love Note to Justice: Building Hope and Healing in Urban America, by Dr. Shawn Ginwright.  (Guild members have access to the full video clip.) The track also featured a dozen breakout sessions, a dedicated roundtable, and site visits to Fleisher Art Memorial and Village of Arts and Humanities.

Continue reading “Progress Report: Collective Action for Creative Youth Development”

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Youth Voice Pops Up with Express Yourself’s Parasols

Installation of hand-painted parasols in Beverly, MA

Amplify, Mass Cultural Council’s grant program created to support youth led and designed projects, is starting to bear fruit, the first of which was the wonderful Pop-Up Parasol exhibit by Youth Mentor Rachel at Express Yourself (EXYO).

Originally conceived as a smaller project involving 20 hand-painted parasols to be on public display at Cumming Center, the idea took hold and blossomed due to the leadership of Rachel, an EXYO mentor, who empowered by the Amplify grant took it upon herself to fundraise and manage the entire project, recruiting peers and participants from EXYO and eventually more than tripling the original project scope. The parasols were displayed in a 70 foot long installation which opened on April 26, bringing  color to a cold spring afternoon in Beverly.

Read more.

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Podcast: Nationally-Recognized CYD Leaders Share Their Work

Creative Minds Out Loud logoCheck out Mass Cultural Council’s podcast, Creative Minds Out Loud, for informative and lively conversations with nationally-recognized creative youth development leaders:

  • Dr. Anthony Trecek-King, Artistic Director of the Boston Children’s Chorus, discusses music as a catalyst to create social change.
  • Susan Rodgerson, Founding Executive/Artistic Director of Artists For Humanity, discusses pioneering youth entrepreneurship & sustainability.
  • Jane Chu, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, discusses mapping an Infrastructure that helps the arts thrive.
  • Bob Lynch, Americans for the Arts’ President and CEO, discusses national arts advocacy leadership strategies and observations.
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Mass Cultural Council Launches “Amplify” to Fund 12 Youth-Led Community Projects

We also have our social imagination: the capacity to invent
visions of what should be and what might be in our deficient
society, on the streets where we live, in our schools. – Maxine Greene

Today the Mass Cultural Council introduces Amplify Youth Voices; a new initiative to raise the voices of young people whose creative expression is driving positive change in communities across the state.

Amplify grants provide support for projects designed and executed by young people in programs that are currently receiving YouthReach or SerHacer funding. A total of $11,440 was awarded with each grantee receiving up to $1,000.

See the funding list.

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Innovation in Action: Three Case Studies from the Intersections of Arts and Social Justice

Innovation in Action cover
This month, EmcArts released “Innovation in Action: Three Case Studies from the Intersections of Arts and Social Justice.” Featuring Alternate ROOTS, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, and The Theater Offensive, this publication examines the contours, possibilities and limitations of innovation and adaptive change at the intersection of arts and social justice. Download the full publication.

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Youth Artists Turned Arts Advocates

MassCreative's Youth Arts Action InitiativeThrough their Youth Arts Action Initiative, MASSCreative partners with 18 youth arts groups to provide advocacy training and opportunities for participants to effect change in their communities. Their youth partners represent a broad spectrum of disciplines – from music, theatre, dance, and visual art – and come from diverse backgrounds representing communities around Greater Boston and beyond.

Read more.

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CYD Featured at AFTA’s 2015 Annual Conference

Americans for the Arts 2015 Conference logo
At this week’s Americans for the Arts 2015 Annual Conference, two sessions will focus on creative youth development:

Creative Youth Development: What’s in a Name?
Out-of-school arts programming has been the core of the work of many local arts service agencies for decades. With a new name for this field, research being conducted, and policy opportunities being exposed, learn from national leaders who are driving this movement for additional monetary and policy support for further investment in the infrastructure of the field of Creative Youth Development. Continue reading “CYD Featured at AFTA’s 2015 Annual Conference”

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ARTWorks for Kids Leads Discussions of Sustainable Support for Youth Arts

The Hunt Alternatives Fund has been working to increase public funding for youth arts through coalition building, advocacy, grantmaking, and outreach in Eastern Massachusetts for many years. Now, they are bringing their experience and their learning to other cities in an effort to build a more national coalition of youth arts organizations, help to increase their individual major donor bases, and support them to influence public resources. Check out this video from a stop in San Francisco:

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Mass Creates 1st State Program to Support El Sistema Music Education

A man teaches a girl the violin as part of Kids 4 Harmony, a program of Berkshire Children and Families.This week the Mass Cultural Council launched the first state initiative in the U.S. to bring music education to underserved youth through programs inspired by El Sistema.

SerHacer (To Make, To Be) will provide pilot grants, musical instruments, and technical support to nine youth music programs across Massachusetts. Led by local schools and social service providers, each program employs teaching and learning models based on El Sistema, which has lifted thousands of poor, disenfranchised children out of poverty through intensive musical training and social support in Venezuela, Argentina, & elsewhere. SerHacer will also fund new research to advance studies that show how making music helps children develop essential executive functioning skills such as focus, planning, and problem-solving. Continue reading “Mass Creates 1st State Program to Support El Sistema Music Education”

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