Arts & At-Risk Youth:
Making it Relevant,
Keeping it Real
by Matilda Raffa Cuomo
The arts—whether during or after school—provide
opportunities for youth from all backgrounds to do something
positive with their talents and time. At Mentoring USA, we
realize that exposure to the creative arts helps to create
a well-rounded person. The challenge we encounter is how to
make the arts accessible in order to expose our youngsters
to the many resources and treasures in New York City. With
the help of our dedicated and creative mentors, we have been
able to find opportunities that really "speak" to
our young people.
Showcasing the paintings, drawings and writings of mentees
from PS 59 in the windows of Bloomingdale's for the past three
years as well as the brightly colored mixed media portraits
of Bloomingdale's staff mentors this year, enables Mentoring
USA to effectively reach many young people.
Mentoring USA'S BRAVE (Bias-Related
Anti-Violence Education ) Juliana program explores the arts
largely through workshops, which explore multiculturalism
in different contexts. Working with Owen Consulting, we have
offered workshops that encouraged mentees to write songs
based on their cultural heritage, with the assistance of
their mentors. This experience was overwhelmingly positive,
and some mentors were inspired to write their own songs as
well! Other examples of workshops that Mentoring USA has
offered at its sites include the following: African dance,
collage making, and mask making. Mentors receive a handbook
in training that offers many suggestions for visual arts activities
related to diversity, and with library books, which cover cultural
and ethnic heroes. We also provide mentors with the quarterly "High
5" calendar, which offers $5 tickets and museum admissions
to teens and their mentors.
Artistic expression is a vehicle
for expressing feelings at the Mentoring USA "Heroic Choices" program retreats.
This program, run in collaboration with the Todd M. Beamer
Foundation, serves youth ages 8-12 who have experienced family
trauma. It starts with an intensive, weekend-long retreat for
parents, caregivers and mentors during which mentors and mentees
work together on arts projects. All mentees leave the retreat
with photo scrapbooks that they have decorated and inscribed
with memories, and with mentoring "treasure chests," filled
with their hopes and dreams for the upcoming year of mentoring,
which they have painted and decorated to represent themselves,
their lives, and their new mentors. In this case, the healing
aspect of the arts is emphasized.
Our goal remains simple: to provide creative outlets to underserved
youth, to introduce youth to careers in the fine and applied
arts, and, most of all, to aid youth in developing collaborative
and communicative skills by encouraging creative thinking,
self-expression and activism through the arts. But first, with
the assistance of their mentor, we have to capture their attention
and interest, by exposing them to the full range of artistic
expression. Sharing the arts will form a lasting memory for
both mentor and mentee.#
Mrs. Cuomo, the former First Lady of New York State, is the
Founder and Chairperson of Mentoring USA.
