BuildaBridge Community Programs

For refugee children, art-making experiences within the BuildaBridge Classroom model have helped them identify adjustment strategies, build on their personal strengths and build resiliency in a new culture. S is a 10-year old Bhutanese refugee girl who has been attending BuildaBridge groups since they started in August 2011 with almost near perfect attendance. In the almost three years of her attending groups, through art-making, S has made significant progress in all of the BuildaBridge outcome areas (social, character development, artistic and academic). As an illustration of the development of her social skills, S has improved relations with her younger brother with whom she is often competitive. This has been an ongoing growth area the therapists have been addressing. During the past two years, S has physically participated less in the movement experiences when other girls are not in attendance. During this third year of programming and as an illustration of her increased character...

Teaching artist assistant Robert Kelleher works with a child on his project For the past several weeks in the Bhutanese movement and visual art group we have been discovering and unfolding the metaphor that just as some art materials create art work that is impermanent, semi-permanent, and permanent, there are things in life that are impermanent, semi-permanent, and permanent. The last two group sessions have focused on permanent art. The children have been imprinting sculpey clay with the soles of shoes and other found objects, that we then bake and bring back to them. The children have started the process of writing narrative stories about their "artifact" sculptures using words and symbols. As they explore how their sculptures have hardened and become permanent (unless broken), they have connected the idea that they also leave artifacts of themselves and can have a permanent imprint on the world. Children shared that by helping each other, caring for others, and sharing th...