The Gift of Self-Expression
Remember as a child being encouraged to speak up, draw, write, paint, dance, or play a musical instrument? To express yourself and your feelings through your own inner spirit? For kids who suffer the effects of poverty, crime and abuse, self-expression is not only left out of childhood training, it's often discouraged. Yet self-expression is an essential part of growing up healthy and whole - it provides an appropriate outlet for feelings that might otherwise emerge in improper, self-defeating ways.
Michele Kotler didn't know she had a talent for writing poetry until a perceptive teacher recognized her ability. Thus began a new start for Michele - one in which she gained the skills and self-esteem required to pursue writing in college and become a teacher and writer herself. With the understanding of how her teacher had transformed her life, Michele founded Community-Word Project (CWP) in 1994 so that she could share that power with others.
Igniting Talent and Creativity
CWP currently serves over 900 elementary, middle and high school students of African-American, Latino and Asian descent. Many are recent immigrants whose families do not speak English, and many have suffered the effects of poverty and abuse.
CWP's programs teach disadvantaged young people how to reach repressed feelings and turn them into powerful forces in their lives. Each child receives the attention of two teaching artists, two interns and a classroom teacher. Pooling their talents, the CWP team helps develop the student's writing, performance and visual arts abilities as a way to promote their emotional growth, literacy and leadership skills.
As students put their ideas and emotions onto the page, stage and canvas, they learn the power of the written, spoken and visual word - and in the process gain self-esteem, insight and a vision for a different future.
"Being with writers of other backgrounds gives me the support I need. We are the same because we write from the heart, but different because we come from many parts of the earth."
-Mauricia, Age 17
http://www.communitywordproject.org/
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