Through community based collaborations, BuildaBridge’s Discovery program offers after-school and evening arts-integrated educational programs to women, children and youth living in emergency homeless shelters and transitional homes, as well as those attending school and recreational center after school programs. Using the child-centered, hope-infused, trauma-informed BuildaBridge Classroom Model℠, Discovery classes aim to assist students in leading more hopeful, healed, and resilient lives through the discovery of personal and communal strengths, talents, and abilities and the development of academic, artistic, character and social skills.
Last Thursday evening; on my way to assist with a BuildaBridge group for Burmese children in South Philadelphia, I pulled up to the street address greeted by yellow caution tape, police and crowds of neighborhood on-lookers. My car window was down and I overheard the words spoken, “somebody was shot.” My heart sank into my stomach. I pulled across the street and parked my car. When I got out and started walking down the sidewalk, I saw Zing and her three children standing on the corner. It was a relief to see them and we waited together outside for a while, waiting for some communication with the teachers inside the classroom, which was directly behind the caution tape that we were not allowed through. After some time passed and still no word, Zing asked if I wanted to go with them to a Burmese family’s home a few blocks away where apparently there was a birthday party happening. When we got to the home, as we walked in the front door, a wave of warmth came over me. No...
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