Art for Social Change

Art for Social Change began with two goals: to promote art in education, and to empower low-income youth in our community. After gaining the interest of a few local University Students, a small amount of money from a Puksta scholarship, and a few donations from close family and friends, we were able to turn this dream into a reality. In the year and a half since the program was initiated, we have guided three groups of students through our curriculum, successfully carried out multiple students’ projects, and provided the opportunity for many of our students to attend free showings and performances. The students participated in the local Martin Luther King Day march and watched a showing of a Schiff Dance Collective performance in Denver. Multiple community members have volunteered their time to teach our students about different art mediums. By providing the means for our students to explore these ideas, we empowered our students as they discovered issues in their community that affected them. From this, they created their own art based projects to influence members of their community, such as: an interpretive dance to promote a drug and alcohol-free lifestyle (shown to students, parents and faculty community members); a letter-writing campaign to President Obama and Colorado Senators Bennet and Udall to end unfair immigration practices, and an accompanying celebratory assembly that over 200 people attended; jewelry-making and sale to raise funds for those in post-earthquake Haiti and Chile; an artistic recycling bin campaign to encourage recycling at Sanchez Elementary School; and a painted mural/origami lessons to inspire hope in children suffering from illness at the local Children’s Hospital and for Sanchez kindergartners. Our plan of action for the future is to make the program sustainable, to be able to expose students to all aspects of art and provide more opportunities for students to become empowered change makers in their communities. Through increased funding we will be able to create opportunities for students to become more active within the community and outside of the school. We will be able to fund workshops led by artists in our community, as well as provide adequate funding to take our students on field trips. We intend to fund coaches and program coordinator with a small stipend in order to retain coaches for a longer time-span. This will allow for sustainability of the program and team consistency, creating familiarity and strong bonds between our coaches and the program. Most of all, we wish to be able to fund the empowering artistic projects created by our students. With increased funding we will ultimately broaden the horizons of the students we work with, the partners of our program and members of our community.