BuildaBridge International

Annual Report

2011

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Annual Report 2011

BuildaBridge International

205 West Tulpehocken Street

Philadelphia, PA 19144

215.842.0428

www.buildabridge.org

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Annual Report 2011

Table of Contents

About BuildaBridge 4

Goals and Core Philosophy 5

International Programs 6

Story of Hope 9

Community Programs 10

Institute 13

Alliances & Goals for 2012 14

New Strategic Plan 15

Financial Report 16

Staff and Board Members 17

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Annual Report 2011

Organizational Review

BuildaBridge was founded in 1997 out of the community work of Drs. J. Nathan Corbitt and

Vivian Nix-Early. It was incorporated in 2001 as a 501 (c) (3) arts education and intervention

organization. BuildaBridge Community provides direct service to vulnerable children and

families in Philadelphia. BuildaBridge Institute is a research and training academy for

community leaders, youth workers, ministers, teachers, and artists who want to integrate the

arts effectively in community-based service. BuildaBridge International organizes, leads, and

provides overseas service opportunities for sustainable arts relief and restoration, training, and

cross-cultural discovery. BuildaBridge maintains its service with the help of 2 full-time staff, 7

part-time staff and 10 regular volunteers. An 11 member professional and diverse board

oversees the work of BuildaBridge. An independent financial audit is conducted each year,

providing transparency.

Mission

BuildaBridge is a nonprofit arts education and intervention organization that engages

the transformative power of the arts to bring hope and healing to children, families and

communities in the tough places of the world. BuildaBridge spans barriers of race, class,

faith and culture to promote holistic personal, family and community development.

Committed to principles of love, compassion, justice, reconciliation and service to

others, BuildaBridge motivates, enlists, trains and connects those with artistic gifts to

those in greatest need. BuildaBridge offers unique programs featuring cross-cultural

perspectives and arts-integrated approaches that are child-centered, trauma-informed

and hope-infused.

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Annual Report 2011

Goals

The primary goals for our programs are to provide children and youth with the following through

creative arts experiences:

Healing from trauma due to violence and abuse in order to break the cycle of violence;

Healthy development and hope for their future;

Improved academic, social, artistic-expressive skills and spiritual and character

development;

Opportunity for rehearsal of skills for living as responsible, contributing and empathetic

citizens;

Artists, youth workers, educators and congregational youth leaders trained in effective

arts-based methods for community, family and child transformation and who use art as

metaphors

Core Philosophy

Since its founding in 1997, BuildaBridge has intentionally developed a personal and social change

model that is implemented in all activities and programs. Our work is:

Arts-integrated

Relational and child-centered

Holistic and collaborative

Purposeful and intentional

Engages the arts for restorative purposes

Contextual

Focused on holistic restorative transformation (organic)

Motto

Our motto is Speaking a Blessing into the Life of Every Child Everyday through the Arts. We define a

blessing (a universal principle of good will) as affirming and recognizing a child’s gifts, potential and

resilience through picturing a special future, words of truth, encouragement as well as appropriate

touch and commitment to the relationship.

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Annual Report 2011

International

BuildaBridge International travels the world to restore hope and healing to communities affected by cultural

and religious conflict, environmental catastrophe, poverty, illness, and social injustice. Through its

specialized team service projects and arts intervention programs, BuildaBridge International promotes

dialogue, understanding, healing, reconciliation, and community development with partners throughout the

world. We do this in the following ways:

International Programs Arts Relief and Development A volunteer program comprised of art therapy

professionals, artists, and community service

workers trained in emergency relief though

artistic intervention. The Arts Relief and

Development program focuses on Education,

Healing and the Environment. Since 1997, our

services have included creative arts camps,

extended internships, special arts-based projects

in all art forms, creative arts therapy, consulting,

and training in education methods, therapeutic

art and psychological first aid, and arts-based

community development.

Diaspora of Hope

Diaspora of Hope began as a one-week camp in

2008 that engaged local and global artists

collaboratively to bring hope and healing to

children through therapeutic art-making in the

toughest places of the world. This included

children’s programs in refugee camps, informal

settlements, and other places where children

are suffering from trauma as a result of extreme

poverty, violence, or catastrophe. BuildaBridge

began forming alliances with local organizations

by providing them with the necessary training to

serve the most vulnerable children in a cross-

cultural context.

From left to right: Artist on Call, Julia Crawford leads a movement exercise with women in the

Democratic Republic of Congo; top: Art as a Metaphor training in Nicaragua; Artist on Call and

Master Teacher Magira Ross in Haiti.

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Annual Report 2011

International Trips The following are locations of BuildaBridge’s work for Arts Relief and Development and Diaspora of

Hope:

Congo – BuildaBridge was invited by Women in War Zones (USA) to provide arts-based psycho-social

intervention with their WAMU Project in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo in November. The

focus of the project was to train social workers related to WAMU and Panzi Hospital in arts-based

trauma intervention; and provide arts-based therapeutic experiences to women with HIV/AIDS and

to those recovering from fistula surgery and from sexual violence and rape. Classes were offered in

visual arts-mural making, dance, and photography.

Haiti – Magira Ross, Community Programs Director, and Camille Edwards, Creative Teaching Artist

conducted a training for artists and teachers at the Louis Pierrot School in Ponte Sonde through our

alliance with Practical Compassion. Following the training, which focused on improved classroom

training techniques through storytelling and dance, the teachers conducted an afterschool arts camp

for 30 children, demonstrating their learning.

Thailand – In June, Jamaine Smith, Bethany Reiff, Julia Crawford, Ginene Szczepanski and Dominique

Padgett traveled to Bangkok, Thailand to work with NightLight, an organization that works with

women and children exploited in the sex industry. All five are Artists on Call with BuildaBridge and

are also students in the Masters of Urban Studies at Eastern University. During their week-long stay,

the students completed the design, painted the mural and constructed stations for a creative prayer

and reflection garden on the sixth floor of NightLight's recently purchased ministry center in the red

light district.

Students in Thailand at the site of their prayer garden Children in Haiti show off their artwork

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Annual Report 2011

Nicaragua – At the invitation of The Nehemiah Center, Dr. Vivian Nix-Early (Co-Founder and COO)

and Nancy Perez, Co-Director of Sonrisas and newly appointed BuildaBridge Advisory Council

Member, led training on Art as Metaphor. This was the fourth training in Nicaragua on aspects of

community arts and arts for education. Previous trainings have been led by Jill Osielski and Dr. J.

Nathan Corbitt. The result has been the establishment of an arts camp and on-going arts-assisted

services to children in Nicaragua living in poverty.

Kenya – Artist-on-Call Kaylie Sauter conducted the 4th Annual Arts for Hope camp with kids from the

Mathare Valley in late November. Partnering with The Inspiration Centre, a para-church organization

located in Nairobi, the camp took place over 5 days and provided 68 kids with various art classes

including drama, mural arts and poetry.

Atlanta –In July, BuildaBridge kicked off its Diaspora of Hope training for teachers at Refugee Family

Services (RFS) in Stone Mountain, Georgia just outside of Atlanta. The objective of the training was to

prepare RFS teachers to use the BuildaBridge classroom model in the coming week of their summer

camp to foster hope and holistic development in their students.

Statistics

People served: 480 People trained: 101 Locations: 6 US Artists/Volunteers: 21 Number of people served since 2001: 5,202

Children listen attentively at the Arts for Hope Camp in

Mathare. Group shot of the participants in Nicaragua Art as

Metaphor training

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Annual Report 2011

Story of Hope – Haiti (Excerpt taken from an article written by Magi Ross, Community Programs Director)

“We danced to celebrate our common humanity, we, from a land of plenty…they from a country torn by

poverty and fear wrought by the devastating earthquake of January 2010. We rejoiced to have spent a

week understanding and admiring each other’s gifts. We danced to celebrate our success at having

bridged gaps in language, culture and opportunity to find ourselves in a moment of shared commonality.

We sorted through English, French and Haitian Kreyole like letters on a scrabble board. Through the

days we found the right words to bring light to the BuildaBridge mission of bringing hope and healing to

a community that understood its importance and received it with open hearts.

Our first training on Sunday convened in a large classroom of the school with 10 teachers eager to learn

all that we had prepared for them. We modeled the BuildaBridge classroom as we taught the

transformative power of telling our personal stories as means of teaching empathy, expanding

imagination and giving voice to our triumphs, losses

and moments of personal growth. We were asked to

bring art, new dances, songs and visual art practices

to enhance the academic offerings of Louis Pierrot

School. Our curriculum would bring that and much

more for the teachers who would later use our

methods in an after-school arts camp throughout

the week. Over the next two days we taught the BB

classroom, curriculum development, lesson

planning, creating and using metaphors drawn from

the natural surroundings, Canadian folk songs and a

funky cheer from the urban files of Philadelphia. All

that we taught was received with gratitude, and all

that we learned still dances in our memories as we go about our day to day lives stateside.

“Papot” or the process of establishing threshold, a portal through which each student would enter to

access the sacred, “chanti” or the use of songs to open hearts and minds to the lessons taught,

“principe`” or guiding principles or mottos to shape behaviors and expectations and “des arte” or the

actual artmaking that took place (dans, chanti, arte, musique), and finally the act of speaking a blessing

to empower the lives of the children of Haiti were but a few of the important components (gifts) shared

between BuildaBridge and Louis Pierrot. The week was filled with learning and the celebration of that

learning. The arts camp that followed was like nothing I have experienced in Philadelphia. A drum and

music class developed a rousing composition that drew everyone into a booming parade of sound and

movement. A museum of art developed and grew into expressions of the career dreams of the children

and a dance class showcased the latest moves to a reggae beat. The close of our trip came much too

soon. We ended with the children speaking blessings. They shared their appreciation for what they

learned and copious hugs with Camille and I. We knew that we had done exactly what we came here to

do. To teach, to bless…and to be blessed.”

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Annual Report 2011

BuildaBridge Community provides arts-integrated intervention and education to children and families

in under-served communities in Philadelphia. In collaboration with local schools, community centers,

transitional homes, and religious congregations, BuildaBridge Community delivers creative arts

educational experiences, and therapeutic intervention through art-making as a metaphor to teach

life, social, character and academic skills.

Committed to principles of love, compassion, justice, reconciliation and service to others,

BuildaBridge offers unique programs featuring cross-cultural perspectives and arts-integrated

approaches that are child-centered, trauma-informed and hope-infused. There are three Community

Programs: Artology, Discovery and Healing. BuildaBridge is excited to now add the Philadelphia

Refugee Mental Health Collaborative as part of its Community Programs

Community Programs

Goals for Community Programs

Provide children and youth with:

the critical elements needed for healing from trauma due to violence and

abuse in order to break the cycle violence;

experiences that foster healthy development and hope for their future;

experiences that develop academic, social, artistic-expressive skills and that

foster character development;

experiences that allow development and rehearsal of skills for living as

responsible, contributing and empathetic citizens.

Left to right: Students in the Discovery program have fun with visual arts and culinary arts; a student draws outdoors in Artology.

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Annual Report 2011

Statistics & Demographics Children Served: 169 Ages 6-9: 58%

Female: 68% Ages 10-12: 32%

Male: 32% Ages 13-15: 10%

African American: 91%

Hispanic: 6%

Caucasian: 3%

Mission of PRMHC

To connect newly arrived refugees to

culturally and linguistically appropriate

mental health care, including support

groups, therapy, and community-

building arts and education projects.

A creative arts therapist works with children as part of the Refugee Project.

Discovery

BuildaBridge's Discovery program offers after-school and evening arts-integrated education

programs to children and youth living in emergency homeless shelters and transitional homes in

Philadelphia. Discovery connects compassionate, talented

teaching artists with interested, creative children in need.

For 2011, BuildaBridge partnered with the following eight

sites: St. Barnabas, Dignity Housing, Project Rainbow,

People’s Emergency Center, Women Against Abuse, Oxford

Circle Christian Community Development Association, Jane

Addams and Woodstock.

A total of 14 teaching artists along with 24 teaching assistants served a total of 169 children.

Children participated in classes using visual arts, culinary arts, spoken word, creative writing,

photography, dance and drumming.

Healing

Creative Arts Therapy provides safe avenues for youth to

express their authentic feelings and enable them to cope with

and recover from traumatic or tough experiences.

BuildaBridge provides creative arts therapy in local

transitional homes and service sites in the Philadelphia region.

2011 was an exciting

year for the Healing

program. The

Philadelphia

Refugee Mental Health

Collaboration (PRMHC)

was drafted in January and began in June with support

from the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services (DBH). In this

collaborative, BuildaBridge partnered with 5 other agencies to provide art therapy for the refugee

community in Philadelphia. The collaborative has successfully completed its first year having served

a total of seventy-six refugees through art therapy groups from the Bhutanese, Burmese and Iraqi

communities. In addition to the collaborative, Co-founder and licensed music therapist, Dr. Vivan

Nix-Early, led music and art therapy sessions at our partner site, Women Against Abuse (WAA).

Sessions for mothers and their babies and for pre-school children attending the WAA learning center

were led weekly for 60 minutes.

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Annual Report 2011

Artology

Artology, an art and biology summer camp, sparks students’

curiosity through a curriculum that integrates natural sciences and

the arts and utilizes Philadelphia's vast natural splendor as a

vibrant and evolving classroom. This year’s theme for Artology

was the Earth. Art projects, science lessons and field trips all

reflected this theme.

A total of 22 staff including full time, part time, Bridging the Gap (BTG)

interns and volunteers served a total of 55 children in grades 4-8. Students

went on three field trips per week to various parks, gardens and museums

around the Philadelphia region. Some favorites included: East Falls Glass

Studio, The National Liberty Museum, Mill Creek

Urban Farm and the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Sculpture Garden. For 2011, Artology students

had the unique opportunity to display their art at

three public art installations, one at the historic

Cliveden House in Germantown, the other at the

Awbury Arboretum and the last at the

Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Artology Pre and Post test results revealed that

93% of students demonstrated overall positive

change with an average positive change of 19%.

The highest and most significant increases were in science and art

knowledge.

Furthermore, 4th and

5thth graders showed

significant change in 5

out of 7 “Internal Locus

of Control” Likert scale

questions.

Statistics & Demographics

Staff: 14

Volunteers: 8

Children Served: 55

Number of weeks: 7

Female: 56%

Male: 44%

African American: 81%

Students with families below Federal Poverty

Level: 82%

Number served since 2007: 231

Top to bottom: a student learns

to blow glass; plants ready for the

outdoor art installation; Artology

group; drawing out in the park.

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Annual Report 2011

Institute Quick Facts Participants: 29

Faculty: 22

Location: Philadelphia, PA

States represented: 8

Countries represented: 2

“The instructors grasp of the subject

matter, the passion & commitment that

they displayed imbued the words with

life and reality.”

-2011 Participant

Institute for Arts and Transformation

The BuildaBridge Institute is a training and applied research academy designed to prepare artists,

youth workers, community and congregational leaders, teachers, social service professionals, and

nonprofit organization personnel to integrate the arts effectively in education, social services and

community development.

The Annual Institute is a 5 day residency that occurs the

first week in June each year. It includes two simultaneous

tracks: a Foundations track for first-time participants and

an intermediate track for second time participants. First

track courses include Foundations for Arts in Transformation; Arts, Creativity and Human

Development; Arts in Education; Art and Spiritual Development; Organizing for Community Arts

including collaborative work and fund-raising. Second track courses include Arts in Healing, Arts in

Social Services, and Leadership Practicum.

This year, the Annual Institute celebrated its 10th

Anniversary Celebration. As part of the celebration, a

formal Alumni Symposium and Exhibit was added to

showcase the work of past alumni. Participants took part

in group drum circles and chose from four Skills

Development Workshops (drumming, mask making,

transformational drama and writing) to enhance their knowledge of a particular art medium.

Methods Lab Practicums took participants out of the classroom to observe master teachers in direct

arts service with youth and seniors in local shelters and retirement homes.

Top left, participants drum in the drum circle; bottom left, masks created during a

skills workshop; right, students draw during a group activity.

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Annual Report 2011

BuildaBridge is proud to have alliances with the following:

Bridging the Gaps, Community Health Internship Program (BTG CHIP)

Women in War Zones (Democratic Republic of Congo)

Eastern University School District of Philadelphia Second Baptist Church, Germantown Philadelphia Museum of Art Inspiration Center (Kenya) Refugee Family Services (Atlanta) Northwest Philadelphia Interfaith Hospitality Network

Oxford Circle Christian Community Development Association

Lutheran Children Family Services Lutheran Settlement House/ Jane Addams Place ECS St. Barnabas Mission Woodstock Family Center Project Rainbow Women Against Abuse Germantown Friends School People’s Emergency Center Philadelphia Refugee Mental Health Collaborative Nehemiah Center (Nicaragua) Nemours Pediatrics Art-Reach Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and Council Dignity Housing Nationalities Service Center Practical Compassion (Haiti) Belmont Behavioral Health Clinic NightLight (Thailand)

In preparation for the exciting years to come, BuildaBridge drafted a new strategic plan to guide the

organization for the next 3 years. The strategic plan (2012-2015) emerged after extensive staff

interviews, research of past Annual Reports and analysis of current and future trends. A SWOT

(Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis was also conducted to better

understand BuildaBridge’s positioning and to help determine goals for achieving new objectives.

Among the changes were a more streamlined mission, outlined visions for programs and the

organization, and specific strategic emphases with corresponding initiatives.

Volunteer Statistics

Total Number of Volunteers: 80

Total Number of hours: 8,918

Total Number of hours 1997 to date: 86, 609

Dollar Value of volunteered services: $1,212,526.00

Goals for 2012

Alliances & Volunteers

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Annual Report 2011

Strategic Plan 2012-2015

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Annual Report 2011

Financial Report

Note: Financial information taken from 2011 Audit

14%

24%

21%

6%

7%

1%

27%

Income = $378,774

Contributions Grant Income

Program Income Registration/Rentals

Intl. Trip Income Misc.

In-Kind Contributions

87%

7%

6%

Expenses = $424,860

Program Expenses General & Admin.

Fund Raising

Grants and Giving

Total Number of Individual Donors: 302 Total Amount Given: $71,088 Grants Received Lincoln Financial Foundation: $5,000 The Douty Foundation: $2,000

Lindback Foundation: $3,000 Allen Hilles Fund: $4,000

The Seybert Foundation: $4,000 Philadelphia Foundation: $3,000

Peter J. Haller Family Foundation: $8,000 Department of Behavioral Health: $17,206

The Northwest Fund: $12,000 PA Department of Education: $2,552.04

School District of Philadelphia: $50,000 Philadelphia Cultural Fund: $10,102

Philadelphia Baptist Association, 2nd Baptist Church of Germantown: $550

Support Community Outreach Program(SCOP): $3,917

Wayne Presbyterian: $5,000

TOTAL Amount Received: $130,327.04

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Annual Report 2011

Dr. J. Nathan Corbitt President and CEO, Co-founder (Volunteer)

Dr. Vivian Nix-Early COO, Co-founder (Volunteer)

Magira Ross Community Programs Director/Shelter Liaison & Master Teacher

Danielle Dembrosky Programs Administrator

Sarah Rohrer Development Associate

Rachel Schaffran Artology Fiscal, Marketing & Reporting Co-Director (Seasonal)

Alysia Williams Artology General Operations Co-Director

Kent Kissinger Accountant

Ripley Robinson Webmaster

Teaching Artists

Julie Rosen Visual Arts

Maeva Renaud Spoken Word, Dance

Danielle Boyer-Graves Culinary Arts

Camille Edwards Creative Writing, Spoken Word

Sarah Thompson Photography

Maritza Ogarro Hip Hop

Tyler Kline Visual Arts

Rachel Schaffran Culinary Arts

Robert Kelleher Photography

Natalie Hoffman Creative Arts Therapist

BuildaBridge Staff

Board Members

Ronald W. Hevey, Sr. (2007-2014) Board Chair Artist, Retired DEC Executive

Cheryl Wade (2006-2013) Director for Philanthropy The Kendal Corporation

Bill Davis (2008-2011) Logistics Specializing in Public Health Doctors Without Borders

Charles Holmes, CPA (2009-2012) Managing Partner Holmes & Company, LLC

Karen Vaccaro (2011- 2013) Friends Council on Education

James Ballengee (2011- 2013) Director of Service Learning William Penn Charter School

Lisa Jordan (2010-2013) Secretary Attorney, Berner Klaw & Watson LLP

Henry Holcomb (2008-2011) Journalist & Strategist Retired staff writer and editor The Philadelphia Inquirer Retired President Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia

Saman Khan (2010-2014) Eighth Grade English Teacher World Communication Charter School

Elaine Ballengee (2011-2013) Teacher Frankford Friends

David Knipel (2007-2013) Legal Council American Baptist Churches Interim Ministry Specialists American Baptist Churches

Principals Dr. J. Nathan Corbitt (2000-Present) President/CEO and Co-Founder BuildaBridge International Professor of Urban Studies Eastern University

Dr. Vivian Nix-Early (2000-Present) COO/CFO and Co-Founder BuildaBridge International Former Dean of Students School for Social Change at Eastern University