All posts by Dawn Heinen

Awards

Creative Youth Development Grants Available

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Mass Cultural Council’s YouthReach and SerHacer provide funding for a three-year period to programs that infuse the arts, sciences, and humanities with principles of youth development. Application deadlines for the next three-year cycle are:

  • YouthReach:
    • January 19, 2018 (New Applicants)
    • May 1, 2018 (Returning Applicants)
  • SerHacer: February 15, 2018 (All Applicants)

Register for an information session:

Advocacy

Celebrate National Arts Education Week: Sept. 10-16, 2017

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National Arts in Education Week Logo
National Arts in Education Week provides a great opportunity to reinforce the vital role of arts learning in our schools and communities.

Mass Cultural Council invests more than $3 million annually in a range of programs that expand access to arts education in classrooms and beyond across the Commonwealth. We are a national leader in the growing, dynamic field of creative youth development. And with MASSCreative, Arts/Learning and others, we advocate for the arts in debates on education policy and funding.

“The arts foster success in school and after graduation; help students develop discipline and grit; grow their problem-solving skills; and challenge them to deeper thinking, more effective communication, and greater civic engagement,”

– Senator Sonia Chang-Díaz, Co-Chair, Joint Committee on Education.

We encourage our partners to use this week to share your stories about why arts education matters to you and the young people in your community. Please join the celebration by:

  • Sharing your story: This year, we want to highlight the impact of arts education in your life. Use #BecauseOfArtsEd on social media and tell us how Arts Ed impacts your life by tagging @MassCultural. You can also use #ArtsEdWeek.
  • Learning more: Check out this toolkit to find a series of ways to join in the national celebration.
Policy/Trends, Research

Participate in the First-Ever Field Survey on CYD

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Americans for the Arts is administering the first-ever field survey on Creative Youth Development on behalf of the Creative Youth Development (CYD) National Partnership. Organizations and programs were invited to participate in the survey on Aug. 23, 2017 and are encouraged to complete the survey trough the unique link sent to them on that date. Questions about the survey may be sent to artseducation@artsusa.org. Others wishing to participate in the study, can do so at the following link: https://surveys.americansforthearts.org/s3/2017-CYDP-Survey.

Dance, Podcast

Podcast: Ancient Dance Emboldens Youth’s Future

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Linda SouOn the Mass Cultural Council’s podcast, Creative Minds Out Loud, we spoke with Linda Sou about Angkor Dance Troupe.

For 30 years, Angkor Dance Troupe has been a creative youth development leader in Lowell, MA, a city with the second-largest Cambodian population in the United States. Angkor connects families to what it means to be Khmer, gives young people opportunity, and shares beautiful stories of the Khmer people and their cultural heritage.

Linda Sou was there from day one. At the age of three, she began her training with Angkor Dance Troupe and would grow up to become its executive director. She shares what it means to preserve and share a nearly-lost art form.

Listen to the episode.

Read the transcript.

Check out other episodes featuring Creative Youth Development leaders.

Ms. Sou was also a lead subject in the documentary film, “Monkey Dance” by Julie Mallozzi which has been screened throughout the United States to raise awareness on intergenerational challenges facing Cambodian youth:.

Nano-Interview, Science, Voices

Nano-Interview with Deb Habib of Seeds of Solidarity

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Deb Habib standing in a field of tall grass, holding a bouquet of fresh cut flowersName: Deb Habib
Organization: Seeds of Solidarity
Title: Co-Founder and Director
Artistic Genre: Supporting all that is beautiful
Years in the field: 30ish

What do you do at Seeds of Solidarity?
Our mission is to ‘Awaken the power of youth, schools, and families to Grow Food Everywhere, to transform hunger to health, and create resilient lives and communities.’ I envision and run programs, and support staff to help our mission blossom and remain innovative. SOL (Seeds of Leadership) Garden for youth is our core and longest running program, and engages young people in using their bodies, minds, and hearts to cultivate food and a hopeful future.

What comes easiest to you in this work?
Forming and sustaining community partnerships and relationships—not that this is easy, but it is very gratifying, unites diverse people and organizations, and enables good work to multiply and strengthen our communities.

What does it mean to your community that you do this work?
Our motto is Grow Food Everywhere and in addition to SOL Garden, we help create gardens at local childcare centers, libraries, the county jail, health centers, and for people in recovery, plus have taught 1000s of people techniques to build healthy soil and grow food on lawns, lots, or in containers. We also started the North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival with our neighbors, now a dynamic venue that supports local artists, performers and farmers while energizing our low-income rural community.

How do you blow off steam?
Dance around the house, re-center with yoga, or go out into nature for healing.

What do you create in your free time?
Writing, photography, pottery, and love to create meals of the food we grow on our farm to serve my family and whoever is at our table.

Seen any good movies lately?
The Eagle Huntress was beautiful.

What are you reading?
The Third Reconstruction. Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, and the Rise of a New Justice Movement by Rev. Dr William J. Barber

The unauthorized biography of your life is titled:
Well, soon there will be an authorized one, albeit more memoir/motivational than biography. My husband Ricky and I are currently writing “Making Love While Farming: A Field Guide to a Life of Passion and Purpose.”

What’s next?
Carry on with resilience and love!

Advocacy, Policy/Trends

National Stakeholders to Convene Next Week

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On July 24 and 25, the Creative Youth Development National Partnership will host nearly 100 leaders from across sectors in Boston for the 2017 CYD National Stakeholder Meeting with a charge to broaden and deepen the impact of Creative Youth Development throughout the United States and the world. This group will include practitioners, youth, funders, policy makers, thought leaders, researchers and government officials who all recognize CYD as a vehicle for positive youth outcomes.

Read more.

Awards

$100,000 NEA Grant Supports Continued Advancement of CYD

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National Endowment for the Arts logoThe National Guild for Community Arts Education, on behalf of a coalition of national partners – including Mass Cultural Council, has been awarded an NEA Collective Impact grant for $100,000. The grant will support the implementation of the National Blueprint for Creative Youth Development (CYD) through cross-sector working groups, communications, and professional development. The funds are part of the NEA’s second round of funding in FY 2017, which will award 1,195 grants totaling $82.06 million to support organizations in all 50 states and five U.S. jurisdictions.

The Blueprint, to be released in December 2017, is a living document that will map out opportunities for cross-sector advancement of CYD and prioritize actionable strategies for policy, partnership, and practice to collectively serve the needs of young people. Strategies include adopting effective business models; developing revenue sources; documenting and communicating the benefit of CYD programs for youth; using shared terminology, data, and assessment tools; and connecting programs with in-school arts education and non-arts community development initiatives.

Read more.

Showcase

Creative Youth Development Showcase July 24

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La Lenngua de Poder youth showcase at IBA in Boston in 2014.Next week, Edvestors and the Mass Cultural Council are partnering to showcase the creative contributions young people make to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Join us on Monday, July 24, 2017 from 6-8:30pm in the lobby of 10 St. James Ave., Boston.

The showcase will celebrate the Massachusetts creative youth development community and  welcome the Creative Youth Development National Partnership as they hold their national stakeholder meeting in Boston.

Youth programs scheduled to present:

  • Angkor Dance Troupe
  • Berklee College of Music
  • Huntington Theatre Company 2017 August Wilson Monologue Competition, Boston winner Laury Teneus
  • Hyde Square Task Force
  • Institute of Contemporary Arts
  • OrigiNation
  • Theater Offensive – True Colors: Out Youth Theater

RSVP to attend this free event.

Music, Podcast

Podcast: Why is a Social Service Agency Running a Classical Music Program?

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Carolyn Mower BurnsOn the Mass Cultural Council’s podcast, Creative Minds Out Loud, we spoke with Carolyn Mower Burns, President and CEO of Berkshire Children & Families (BCF).

Berkshire Children & Families is a social service agency serving Western Massachusetts that believes that partnering with families is the best way to promote healthy, happy children to make strong families and better communities.  Burns shared how through Kids 4 Harmony, an intensive classical music program for social change, BCF uses musical excellence as a vehicle for developing whole children and whole families.

Listen to the episode.

Read the transcript.

Check out other episodes featuring Creative Youth Development leaders.