Arts Learning

INTENDED COMMUNITY AND COMMUNITY DIVERSITY: With this project, we successfully reached our intended communities: the students who attend East Side Neighborhood Services’ Out-of-School-Time programs at Menlo and Heritage. At Menlo, 80% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, and 85% of students are people of color. Heritage serves youth ages 12-20 who are primarily of East African/Somali heritage. Our youth come from the southeast and northeast Minneapolis, and most of the families we serve are below or at 100 -200% of the poverty line. Many of our students come from very large families and are typically first and second generation Americans. For many of the youth at Heritage, finding ways to communicate the complexity of the multiple lives they live on a daily basis - daughter/son, translator, student, religious scholar, and American Muslim teenager - is very difficult. Through this project, students at Menlo were able to connect more deeply with the Northeast-based Six Families collective, and students at Heritage were able to connect more deeply with Somali photography Mohamud Mumin. In addition, students at Menlo and Heritage begin connecting together and learning about each other’s communities. Students also had the ability to present their work at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design Gallery and the work was left up for one week following the opening, which allowed students to show their work to people who might not otherwise experience it Parents and sibling of students, teachers from the schools, and Youth Department staff from East Side all attended the final event along with artist from the community. At our final showing approximately 100 people showed up to see the work; this group was a mix of ages, ethnicities, and genders. Since our students and artists come from diverse backgrounds, this project was designed and executed by people from diverse communities. Our final performance brought two groups of alternative high school students together, during a transitional time in their lives to tell their stories using art forms that allow them to communicate how they feel, what they see in the world, and how it sounds to them. Friends, family members, teachers, youth workers, and siblings invited to the final performance gained insight into their unique viewpoint, and the world that they navigate daily. ACCESSIBILITY. East Side Neighborhood Services’ Out-Of-School-Time programming is accessible by design. We provided transportation for youth via bus passes and vans whenever necessary. A healthy snack was served every day. Any student at Menlo or Heritage who was signed up for afterschool and interested in attending was able to attend. No additional access needs existed within our group, though we were prepared to hire translators if needed. Thirty-four students from Menlo and Heritage attended at least one arts workshop with 90% creating at least one photography or sound project that they felt comfortable presenting. Additionally, 90% demonstrated an increased understanding of concepts relative to composition in photography and sound.