Program: Victory in Peace
Program
Year Started: 1992
Focus: Creative Writing & Visual Arts
Youth Served: 60
Ages: 6-11
Budget: $100,000
The effectiveness of teamwork evidenced by the partnership
of four diverse Racine agencies--the Charles A. Wustum Museum
of Fine Arts with the Racine Urban League, The Taylor Home and
Education Center and the Racine Council for the Prevention of
Drug and Alcohol Abuse--is a paradigm for the youth they serve.
Program participants are recommended by teachers in 27 public
schools and include children with learning disabilities, gang
participants and children acting out in classrooms. The agencies
are introducing the Museum to a constituency it had not yet
tapped, and the Museum is showing the agencies how the arts
can serve their common goal of steering youth away from destructive
be havior. The 1-year program engages students weekly for 1
1/2 hours through arts projects and, more
intensively, a summer book workshop that takes participants
through the process of creating and producing a book--writing
the stories, making the paper and designing the pages. The books
have been so successful that some copies have been placed in
the public library and the Museum; some have been sold to museums
and rare book collections around the country. The other arts
projects take advantage of such opportunities as a Fair Housing
Poster contest. Victory in Peace participants also receive help
with their homework, transportation from school and to their
homes and other needed support services through the Program.
Victory in Peace also organizes field trips to museums, libraries,
concerts and other special places.
|