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Each season we share news and updates about our work that impacts students and teachers around the world!
Our 2023 Summer Youth Connection is starting soon! Students from The Norwalk Art Space in Norwalk and RaDity camp in Western Ukraine will have a chance to exchange art and connect through live videoconferencing. RaDity Camp is solely for children who have been affected by the current war. Both the Ukrainian and American participants will explore the relationships in their daily lives that help ground them. The program will run from July 25th to August 4th.
On June 22, we held an info meeting where local community members learned about the exchange and how to support it. Attendees got to hear from Mykola Vynnytskyy, RaDity’s camp Director, as well as Darcy Hicks, Director of Education at The Norwalk Art Space.
“Working alongside dedicated educators and mental health practitioners is an amazing opportunity for all of us here at Creative Connections. What a privilege. It is allowing us to bring our arts-based exchange experience to children in vital need of connection and healing. Our aim is to provide an invaluable bonding experience to both the Ukrainian and American youngsters.”
– Alan Steckler, CC Founder and Project Coordinator
Your generous contributions will enable us to bring a unique healing experience to Ukrainian youth and their local peers in Norwalk. We also aim to continue this connection between USA students and Ukraine schools in our ArtLink programming in the fall.
Learn more HERE
We are proud to establish this new award in honor of our longtime champion Susie Salomon. Our first recipient is the beloved Founder of Tender Talents School in Uganda, Frank Katoola. Frank has worked with us to bring several performance troupes to the USA, coordinated many ArtLink exchanges, ran a series of performance workshops, and recently conducted a 5-week virtual residency.
An update: After receiving a Challenge America grant from the NEA, we facilitated an inspirational exchange between deaf students attending the Machakos School for the Deaf in Kenya and the American School for the Deaf in West Hartford, CT.
Besides creating and exchanging art, the students met in two videoconferences where they explored the stories behind their pieces through signing.
Last month, our program partner, cARTie, selected 26 of the art pieces to display on their Museum Bus. cARTie runs Connecticut’s first and only nonprofit traveling art museum bus committed to bridging inequities in education and arts access across the state.
The artwork and student videos will tour 50 underserved schools in CT, serving more than 5000 PreK-2 students over the 2023-24 school year. Each school visit will include workshops that guide students to discover the ideas presented in the art, introduce the museum environment, build the foundations for critical and creative thinking, and raise awareness and appreciation of the (dis)ability community, especially those who are deaf and hard-of-hearing.
Enjoy this wonderful excerpt of a Kenyan student sharing (and signing) about his art piece and his passion for DJing!
We would like to give a warm welcome to Roz McCarthy, the newest addition to our Board of Directors! Her proven expertise and dedication to excellence in education make her a valuable addition to our team.
And we would also like to welcome back Sofia Canessa, our Communications Associate, from her 4-month trip in South America. We are excited to work with her again and to hear all about her travels.
To carry on their legacy of supporting meaningful connections that both broaden and deepen global perspectives among students around the world, it has been our honor to establish The David and Susie Hurwitt Scholarship Fund. To date, this fund has grown to over $20,000.
To learn more about this fund, please visit the webpage by clicking HERE
Or to make a donation, use the ‘Give Today’ button below.
We sincerely thank you!
Each season we share news and updates about our work that impacts students and teachers around the world!
Mathews Park
303 West Avenue
Norwalk, CT 06850
USA
1 203-803-4376
Mathews Park,
303 West Avenue,
Norwalk, CT 06850
USA
1 203-803-4376
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