Tabadul
Tabadul: Reflecting on Our Experiences Through the Arts, a continuation of a program began in 2018, was relaunched mid-September at NEHS with funding from the Philadelphia Foundation. This after-school arts program brought teaching artists working in the mediums of Visual Art, Writing, and Podcasting to NEHS. The goal is to work with students on individual and group projects to explore their identities, encourage self-expression, amplify youth voices, and develop leadership skills especially in the civic sphere. The students chose topics passionate to themselves and have been working with David Heayn-Menendez afterschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
A small group of visual artists and poets in September expanded significantly between October and December to more than 30 participants as more fiction writers and podcasters joined the program. The stories and podcasts explore a range topics from colorism and fitting in or trying to be normal to issues with trust and family trauma. Starting in December the journalist and teaching-artist, Lorraine Ustaris began meeting with students after-school to plan their podcasts which will be completed in the new year, placed online, and submitted for youth podcast competitions before the end of the academic year. Trapeta Mayson, Philadelphia’s Poet Laurette and local visual-artist and business owner Kiesha Whatley have been contracted to lead the other programs in the new year.
A preliminary planning grant from The Scattergood Foundation allowed Al-Bustan to further rethink and expand the program beyond the initial scope. After receiving the implementation grant from the Scattergood Foundation in November Al-Bustan has include two additional program elements. The first is a more significant in-school art integration program where the teaching-artist are embedded in classes with significant immigrant and refugee or second-generation students to develop in-school projects which explore their experience, identity, and hopes for the future. The in-school component not only explores these important themes through the arts but also pursues art therapy techniques in consultation with Al-Bustan’s art therapist Alaa Al-Hajji.
During the second grading quarter Lorraine Ustaris worked with 60 ESOL students in three of Ms. Stacia Parker’s English classes to produce 30 recordings focused on immigrants and refugees. These recordings will be edited in post-production by Lorraine with a group of podcasting 25 students after-school who have the technical skills and equipment necessary to create a final product which will later be placed online. In the third grading period, Lorraine Ustaris and Keisha Whatley will be in six new classes ranging from IB Anthropology and History to Art, French, Spanish. This will extend the reach of the in-school program to a further 200 students.
The second addition to the Tabadul program is the inclusion of art therapy and ELL programing for NEHS and their parents. During the in-school and after-school arts programing efforts have been made to recruit a group of students to participate in small group art therapy sessions with Alaa Al-Hajji.
Twice a week a group of 10-15 Arabic speaking parents have met since October for two hours of programing. One hour focuses on community building, English conversation and American culture as a means to pursue art therapy for immigrant and refugee parents and to help them navigate their new home while building a future for themselves and their families. The second hour is a traditional English class. In 2020, once a month information sessions led by experts will provide a narrower focus on topics of great interest to the parents, such as naturalization, mortgages, and college admission. This new direction for the program takes a holistic perspective on the role of the arts in the health and wellness of the immigrant and refugee community.