In the Spotlight
Youth Get Creative in Their Out-of-School Time

An art club sponsored by an $8,000 grant from LISC is providing youth in the Scarritt Renaissance neighborhood with an outlet for their creativity and a safe place to spend their free time. 

Held on Monday nights from 6:30 to 8:00 in the basement of the Melrose United Methodist Church, the club features a month-long exploration of different artistic mediums such as painting, music, printmaking, theatre, and fabrics.  Each session is lead by artist Wolfgang Bucher and a guest artist, and incorporates lessons on the history of the art form, with a focus on connecting the art to neighborhood issues such as cleanliness and safety. 

“The art club was able to instill in the kids a sense of responsibility and pride for their neighborhood,” explained Pauline Mbogo, community organizing manager at Westside Housing Organization and organizer of the art club.  Examples of how students used art to address concerns in their community include a play written and performed by the youth about the problems of litter and unleashed dogs, and posters they created for a neighborhood clean-up, representing how they envision their neighborhood could be. The need for a program targeted to at-risk youth was identified in the Scarritt Renaissance Quality of Life Plan (a set of priorities developed by residents and stakeholders of each NeighborhoodsNOW target area).  “Based on interviews, residents felt that there was nothing positive and constructive for the youth to do, which caused them to get into trouble,” said Mbogo.

Westside Housing, in partnership with Mosaic Brain, developed the art club as a way to expose youth to various art media,  get them interested and involved in their community and to provide a positive and fun place for them to gather once a week during the early evening hours.  The program began in March and runs through October, with a month break in August.

Westside Housing plans to continue to increase enrollment and extend the program into 2010. They are currently exploring partnerships with churches, schools, and other organizations offering youth programming, and plan to create bi-lingual flyers to advertise the art club to the Hispanic community.   

NeighborhoodsNOW - Supporting Healthy Environments and Lifestyles