Earlier this year, Arts for Learning Connecticut earned a $15,000 grant from the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving to provide summer programming to young people and families in the city of Hartford. So, we turned to our longtime partners at the Hartford Public Library to design a free arts learning series for their community.
What we came up with was 8 weeks of enrichment arts learning programs for at least 200 students during summer 2023. The program includes week-long residencies at each of the 8 active HPL summer sites: Albany Library, Barbour Library, Camp Field Library, Dwight Library, Downtown Library, Park Street Library, Rawson, and Ropkins Branch. Each site’s program will run for 4 days during a given week, with 3 hours of arts learning per day.
Programming is being implemented by pairs of Arts for Learning Connecticut Teaching Artists (TAs). These are highly-trained creative educators who use their deep experiences in their given art forms and their understanding of Social and Emotional Learning, Culturally Responsive Teaching, Universal Design for Learning, and the National Core Arts Standards to help students not only learn about a new art form and create original artwork in that art form, but also develop SEL skills and resilience. Our TAs span the creative spectrum, from spoken word poetry to hip hop dance, improvisational theatre to standup comedy, visual arts to African drumming.
The photo below is taken from a workshop implemented by AFLCT TAs Adelka Polak of Sova Puppet Theatre and Craig Norton; it shows a young artist making a puppet snake!
Check out https://directory.aflct.org/programs to see what AFLCT programs would be a fit for you and your community!