BuildaBridge Community Programs

Every artist is familiar with the paralysis brought on by the challenge of a blank canvas; the smooth, white, pristine expanse daring you to put down your first mark.  Today, our group of Bhutanese Elders may have experienced this for the first time. They faced it, fought with it and conquered it. Week after week, I am struck and inspired by the smiles and spiritual calm of our group members who have endured and thrived through so much hardship in their lives. While sharing their stories through drawn symbols and words, they have given us hints as to what underlies their ability to live in gratitude and grace. This strength and character, however, did not make them immune to the fear of the seemingly small challenge before them. When we announced that this was the day they would start their mural, actually putting colored marks onto the large canvas (mind you traced ones over our penciled sketch), they unanimously declined.  There was a long pause and then a rash of heated Nep...

BuildaBridge completed Year 3 activities of the Philadelphia Refugee Mental Health Collaborative on June 30th, 2014.  Funding continued from the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual DisAbility Services, the Sheila Fortune Foundation and Union Benevolent Association.  Seventy-six refugees from three different populations were served during the past year. Read the full Year 3 Report. BuildaBridge would like to honor and thank the following artists who have contributed to the success of the Refugee Project for at least two or more years: Celeste Wade Natalie Hoffmann Julia Crawford Christine Byma Jessica LaBarca Robert Kelleher Stevie French Danielle Owen Liz Green For full biography and current position information, see the Personnel page .

As part of Nationalities Services Center's (NSC) Refugee Employment and Advancement Program (REAP), BuildaBridge teaching artists Francesca and Stevie provide weekly therapeutic art groups that seek to teach English, occupational and life skills to participants through drama, movement and the visual arts.  For the past two weeks, participants, who are adult refugees from numerous countries in the English as a Second Language (ESL) class, created masks out of paper mache and decorative ornamental items.  During the most recent class, participants were asked to express a movement of their mask (shown in the photo above) and describe their mask in written English.  In their written descriptions, with prompts from the teaching artists, their masks communicated participants' cultures, personal identities and journeys; they communicated their hopes, feelings and dreams.  This exercise was also practice for reading and writing in English. Drama exercises are incorporated th...