The sun was low on the horizon and birds were singing joyfully when I fired up the Miata, put the top down and headed west for another day of learning how to build bridges over cultural barriers to help children. My thought-inspiring journey included a 20-minute dash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and a half hour on tree-sheltered suburban byways.
As I drove, I pondered how really efficient the BuildaBridge approach we are studying this week really is. For example:
1. We engage artistic gifts already in the communities and locally available resources. What we add are mentoring and a curriculum, and a disciplined focus on desired outcomes and helping children develop the inner motivation and strength to deal with their own dilemmas. We offer methodology for planning, teaching and problem-solving. This makes what we do more relevant and sustainable, even in dysfunctional communities and societies.
2. We work with all ages but our primary focus is ages 9-14 because that’s where we can have the most enduring impact.
3. Our approach engages artists to work with and serve others. We help them deal with their issues while they are helping children deal with theirs. The drum exercises this week (which I’ll tell you more about later) helped one artist/teacher, as she put it, release something that was bothering her and focus. In a mask-making class, another artist/teacher said making the mask helped her “say something she couldn’t say verbally and let go of something that she needed to let go of. . .” This is important. Our work is with children in really scary, tough, emotionally draining and stressful situations.
4. We’re not limited to the successful programs we do ourselves. Whenever possible we form alliances with others who are doing good work to help them do more. This is critical with tens of thousands of non-profit organizations are competing at for funds at a time when many sources have been limited or dried up altogether by the global economic crisis
5. We’re developing technology to teach artist/teachers and make resources available online. We have developed a curriculum for a full masters degree and we are working on relationships with colleges and universities overseas. This is important because BuildaBridge people network very well. Word of what we do is spreading wonderfully and creating a demand for what we do that far exceeds what we can offer ourselves given our limited financial resources in the current economy.
6. Many artists who work with us donate their time and pay their own travel expenses. (There are many more artists we could use if we could subsidize their costs, and we’re working hard to raise money to do that.)
7. We build bridges across cultural barriers and deal with people and communities where they are, as they are. We give teachers and children the ability to be resilient, to remain positive, cleanup messes from mistakes and learn from tough moments. We know how to engage in creative disruption if powerful forces are maintaining a status quo that benefits them but harms many. We help develop sustainable strategies that work in dysfunctional communities and societies. We build relationships and commitments that endure.
More on this later. I want to tune in to what my classmates sharing.
– Henry J. Holcomb, BuildaBridge volunteer Artist on Call and board member
