Summary:

Beginning this fall, the Westchester Arts Council will team up with Westhab, Inc. to put the power of the arts to work in helping 100 homeless youth understand the connection of traditional stories to their own lives.

By recognizing this connection and seeing how others have overcome challenges similar to their own, program participants will learn to understand their own stories, tell them, and in the process gain self-esteem and confidence. The program, called StoryArts, kicked off last week at shelters located in White Plains and Elmsford. StoryArts has been funded partially by a $30,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts awarded to Westhab, Inc., the County's largest provider of housing for the homeless.

The StoryArts program will consist of eight to sixteen workshops devoted to storytelling/theatre, music, dance, visual arts and videography. This will allow the children and teens time to become immersed in each of the four different art forms. In the last month of the program their work will be woven together to create a final performance, and a video produced by the teens will link the entire experience, documenting and demonstrating the creative process.

Subjects Covered: healing

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