Asian Americans United (AAU) exists so that people of Asian ancestry in Greater Philadelphia exercise leadership to build their communities and united to challenge oppression. AMF funds support the AAU Summer Program. By training high school and college students to serve as teachers and mentors to children in the summer school, AAU involves youth in addressing needs in their communities. AAU believes that it can best address the educational, development and social needs of youth by engaging them as active participants in solving problems in their communities. As the time that they are growing personally, young people make concrete contributions to their communities and serve as role models to children coming up behind them. In this way, AAU’s proposal focuses on youth leadership and civic engagement among children and youth staff, and encourages intergenerational collaboration.
Asian Arts Initiative (AAI) is a community-based arts center in Philadelphia that engages artists and everyday people to create art that explores the diverse creations of Asian Americans, addresses our social context, and imagines and effects positive social change. AMF funds support increased youth leadership opportunities in their Youth Arts Workshop programming at their home site and at two new locations at the John H. Taggart School and South Philadelphia High School. Supported by research indicating the role of arts in improving youth academic achievement, critical thinking, problem solving, social growth and community involvement, the Youth Arts Workshop provides year-round summer and after school opportunities for participants ages 10 to 22 to learn different art forms while developing their leadership and communications skills and sense of community involvement and awareness. Support from the Asian Mosaic Fund would enable AAI to offer Workshop opportunities such as the "Immigrant Life Stories" video-making project and the Apprenticeship in Theatrical Production workshop.
The Wilma Theater’s mission is to present theater as an art form, engaging artists and audiences in an adventure of aesthetic philosophical reflection of the complexities of contemporary life. They seek to accomplish their mission by producing thoughtful, well-crafted productions of intelligent, daring plays that represent a range of voices, viewpoints, and production styles. AMF funds support a year-long residency at South Philadelphia High School during the 2010 – 2011 school year to address South’s history of racial tension, and to move forward from its recent outbreak within the student body. The residency will help provide South’s students with the opportunity to craft a new narrative for themselves, their school, and their neighborhood, resulting in a production of an original theatrical work, conceived, scripted, executed, and produced by the students themselves.
|
|
