Art for Refugees in Transition (A.R.T.) helps rebuild individual and community identity for refugees worldwide. Drawing upon the indigenous art forms of each community, A.R.T.’s programs are designed to enable the elders of a culture to educate and incorporate the younger generation in their cultural traditions. By developing self-sustaining curricula and training programs, A.R.T. engages children and adults in visual, performing and creative arts drawn from their own cultures. These activities provide local and international relief institutions with tools to help refugee communities cope with the trauma, terror and dislocation of war and natural disaster.
History
ART was conceived in 1999, as a response to the ongoing turmoil in the Balkans. Refugees, fleeing the raging warfare were flooding into safe towns. A.R.T.'s founder, Sara Green, earned her MBA at Columbia University with the idea of applying business model skills to the world's refugee populations. She saw fear and hopelessness in the faces of children who had had their childhoods stolen away. But every child loves to sing and dance, to play and feel free. Sara's hope was that, by finding their childhood through their unique ethnic expression, these children could become more than lost refugees. In 2001, she went to Kosovo to work with these children. After several years of research and development, A.R.T.'s initial program was launched in two Burmese refugee camps in Thailand in 2003.
In partnership with the International Rescue Committee, (IRC) A.R.T. successfully introduced and implemented its pilot program, working with elders and children of the Burmese Karen, Karenni and Shan tribes. A.R.T.'s programs were enthusiastically embraced — by both young and old. For these Burmese refugees, their cultural expression creates purpose where there is little or no hope of getting out of the camps and returning home.
A.R.T. is currently running its programs in barrio Tintalito, localidad Kennedy, Bogotá, and Carmen de Viboral, Antioquia, Colombia. Currently, Colombia is undergoing the largest humanitarian catastrophe in the Western Hemisphere. Armed conflict has created displacement throughout Colombia where over three million of its thirty six million inhabitants have become refugees.
Goals
“Over seven million refugees have lived in camps for 10 years or more.”—43rd World Refugee Survey, U.S. Committee for Refugees.
Long after international relief organizations have provided food, clothing, shelter, medical care and sanitation, hapless refugees so often languish in camps that are little more than human warehouses. Once basic relief is provided, the refugees need help to create and maintain their sense of community, and to prepare them to get on with their lives in a strange country. Here is where A.R.T. steps in, developing a specific curriculum for each group, based on the refugees’ own indigenous arts, helping them to re-establish intergenerational relationships rooted in their own culture, and thus giving them the impetus and tools to rebuild their communities. A.R.T.’s programs are designed to affect the lives of children and adults living in refugee communities in a number of ways:
- Cultural preservation – Away from their home towns and villages, refugees are in danger of losing their indigenous customs and culture, and with that their group identity; leaving their children with an even more impoverished future.
- Personal development – Children will benefit both from keeping their culture alive and from the self-expression and healing that will emerge from their involvement with their community’s arts. Being part of a community brings with it the prestige of being entrusted with its heritage and directly affects the self-esteem of the children who participate. It helps empower them, training the children to take on future leadership roles. Adults, especially the elders, in turn find new purpose in passing on their traditions to the children. Our experience so far has shown overwhelming enthusiasm from all who are asked to participate.
- Community building – The refugees themselves decide which art forms will be taught and passed on to the youngsters. A.R.T. acts merely as a facilitator, with the interests of the children as its primary focus. Adult artists in each community are trained by A.R.T. staff to implement the program, thus helping to establish respect by the younger generations for the tribal elders, to rebuild intergenerational relationships, and to encourage the refugees to recapture the roots of their community.
Future Plans
A.R.T. now operates on three different continents and has offices in New York and Bogotá. Due the previous success of programs, A.R.T. will continue to expand its presence in Colombia with new programs in Bogotá and other cities including Medellin and Cali. Building on its expansion in the United States, A.R.T. will begin a program in Utica, located in its home state of New York.
We anticipate that the projects will evolve into self-sustaining cultural programs in this community, and will serve as a model for future projects both in the region and elsewhere in the world. With over 30 million refugees and internally displaced people, most of whom can never go home; there is a great need to help them rebuild their communities. A.R.T. does not provide a “cookie cutter” solution, but does build on its basic format; adapting the curriculum to the specific needs of the particular culture in the refugee community. A.R.T. will help meet these needs by continuing to develop programs to guide refugee communities in their efforts, and to build a staff of professionals with experience in management, refugee and aid relief, and art education.
