Our Mission and Vision
BuildaBridge is a non-profit 501(c)3 arts education and intervention organization. Our mission is to engage creative people and the transformative power of art making to bring hope and healing to children, families, and communities in the contexts of crisis and poverty.BuildaBridge envisions a world where all children are resilient, experience self-efficacy, and have a vision for their future. BuildaBridge dedicates its resources to building the capacity of creative adults and local communities to fulfill this vision.
Our History
1997. BuildaBridge was founded in 1997 by university colleagues, Drs. J. Nathan Corbitt and Vivian Nix-Early. BuildaBridge received 501c3 status in 2000. In 1997 BuildaBridge conducted its first learning Institute amongst 15 traumatized congregations in a dysfunctional and earthquake ravaged community in Costa Rica. From that experience, the cofounders saw what could happen when artists with the training and passion for service engage their art as a vehicle for transformation. This led, in 2001, to the implementation of an annual Philadelphia Institute for Arts in Transformation, which has now trained over 1000 participants from Philadelphia and around the world to work with vulnerable populations through art-making.1999. BuildaBridge began community programming with a single university intern and volunteer artists in the northeast section of the city.
2001. BuildaBridge assisted Ayuda Community Center in establishing its first community-based arts program. It has now grown into Orange Corner Arts working with primarily Hispanic youth.
2004. BuildaBridge was invited by the City of Philadelphia and Bright Horizons to paint a mural at Woodstock Family Shelter. The one-time experience grew to a regular volunteer arts program in the transitional home.
2006. the Homeless Children's Initiative of the School District of Philadelphia invited BuildaBridge to expand its work with homeless children and provided funding for after-school programming in seven emergency shelters and transitional homes in the city.
2007. Artology, a summer program, was initiated in 2007 and has introduced approximately 250 elementary and middle school youth to integrated learning in art, biology and environmental responsibility.
2008. BuildaBridge established Diaspora of Hope (DOH) a one-week arts camp for kids living in poverty held simultaneously in several countries around the world.
2007. Artology, a summer program, was initiated in 2007 and has introduced approximately 250 elementary and middle school youth to integrated learning in art, biology and environmental responsibility.
2008. BuildaBridge established Diaspora of Hope (DOH) a one-week arts camp for kids living in poverty held simultaneously in several countries around the world.
2009. Over 30 artists worked with children in Guatemala, Egypt, Kenya, Nicaragua and Philadelphia. Our international work still includes this direct service of arts-camps but has shifted to an emphasis on training local community workers for arts-based and trauma-informed work with children that builds capacity of the local organization.
2010. BuildaBridge responded to the earthquake in Haiti, sending recovery teams to assist in a school and orphanage with arts-based intervention and place-making. Back in Philadelphia, the number of days of after-school programming in Discovery was increased in order to improve program impact and outcomes in the shelters.
2011. BuildaBridge joined with three refugee resettlement agencies, mental health providers, and pediatric treatment facilities in a joint effort called the Philadelphia Refugee Mental Health Collaborative supported by a grant from the Department of Behavioral Health. Through creative arts therapy, the project is addressing flight and resettlement stressors that impact the success of refugee children as well as encouraging ethnic community resilience and cultural strengths. All totaled, in 2011 BuildaBridge artists reached 888 women and children with the transforming power of the arts in Philadelphia, Kenya, Haiti, the Congo and Atlanta, Georgia.
2012. June 2012 saw the addition of the third track in the Annual Institute focused on arts relief and arts-based psychological first aid for work in disaster areas. BuildaBridge also commenced its Training Trainer’s program as a part of the organization’s plan for sustainability. BuildaBridge partnered with UNICEF-Haiti to train 90 community workers in 3 Haitian cities as part of the UNICEF Child Protection Initiative. In Artology, both age groups (4th-5th graders and 6th-8th graders) simultaneously attended a full five weeks vs. the consecutive age groups format of 4/3 weeks of previous years.
2010. BuildaBridge responded to the earthquake in Haiti, sending recovery teams to assist in a school and orphanage with arts-based intervention and place-making. Back in Philadelphia, the number of days of after-school programming in Discovery was increased in order to improve program impact and outcomes in the shelters.
2011. BuildaBridge joined with three refugee resettlement agencies, mental health providers, and pediatric treatment facilities in a joint effort called the Philadelphia Refugee Mental Health Collaborative supported by a grant from the Department of Behavioral Health. Through creative arts therapy, the project is addressing flight and resettlement stressors that impact the success of refugee children as well as encouraging ethnic community resilience and cultural strengths. All totaled, in 2011 BuildaBridge artists reached 888 women and children with the transforming power of the arts in Philadelphia, Kenya, Haiti, the Congo and Atlanta, Georgia.
2012. June 2012 saw the addition of the third track in the Annual Institute focused on arts relief and arts-based psychological first aid for work in disaster areas. BuildaBridge also commenced its Training Trainer’s program as a part of the organization’s plan for sustainability. BuildaBridge partnered with UNICEF-Haiti to train 90 community workers in 3 Haitian cities as part of the UNICEF Child Protection Initiative. In Artology, both age groups (4th-5th graders and 6th-8th graders) simultaneously attended a full five weeks vs. the consecutive age groups format of 4/3 weeks of previous years.
Alliances and Collaborations
Partnerships and collaborations have been an integral part of Philadelphia programming which include the School District of Philadelphia, the Corporation for National Service, ten homeless shelters and transitional homes, Bridging the Gaps program of the Drexel University Medical School, Eastern University, in addition to collaborations with local congregations, institutions of higher learning, arts schools, museums and historic sites. Internationally, BuildaBridge has partnered with many local and international organizations including UNICEF and International Ministries. [See more extensive list below].Our Core Philosophy
Our philosophy, based on our years of research, experience and evaluation, can be summed up in the diagram above. This means that within every class--with every interaction with children--all artist teachers, assistants, therapists and volunteers intentionally work with children, their families and their communities through:
- Three basic goals--Facilitating
- Hope--Having a future orientation
- Healing--Gaining holistic well-being
- Resilience--Acquiring and using both internal and external resources to bounce back form adversity
- A method characterized by four central concepts
- Child-Centered--Placing the needs of the child before other considerations and providing age-appropriate services
- Hope-Infused--Helping children (but also families and communities) develop will-power and way-power in discovering a future vision for themselves and finding a path to accomplish it.
- Trauma-Informed--informed and sensitive to the neurological, biological, psychological, and social effects of trauma and violence on children
- Arts-Integrated--Creating and making-art as a method or way to teach non-art subjects, especially life skills
- The BuildaBridge Classroom or Child-Safe-Spaces is our model used to engage and interact with children and communities. It includes the following elements:
- Ritual
- Art as metaphor
- Setting appropriate boundaries of space and behavior to create a safe place
- Speaking Blessings
- Holistic development that includes academic, social, artistic, and spiritual aspects
- The Creative Artist fulfills four basic roles within the context of teaching
- Mentor--guiding the process of learning
- Sage--teaching life lessons
- Shaman--leading in creative transcendent experiences
- Priest/Priestess--establishing expectations and maintaining appropriate boundaries
Our motto for working with kids is: Speaking a Blessing into the Life of Every Child Everyday through Art-making. We define a blessing (a universal principle of good will and giving honor) as speaking and teaching hope and healing through words of truth & admiration, meaningful touch and commitment to the relationship. This is most effectively accomplished when the art-making process provides a metaphor for a life lesson. Art as metaphor happens through mentoring relationships between an artist and a child.
Our work is child-focused and arts-integrated. We believe all children have a need for and the right to these five things: 1) a trusting relationship, 2) love through a compassionate exchange, 3) truth regarding life and the consequences of actions, 4) clear boundaries of behavior; and 5) a safe place for creative play and self-discovery. The arts provide a method, mode, and vehicle for providing children these “rights”. Our two primary goals of engaging children through art-making are teaching (teaching subjects by integrating the arts) and healing (healing the spirit through the therapeutic power of the arts). Work is to be centered on the needs of the child and not those of one's artistic ideals.
Our work is relational. The power of art-making to bring about change is in the relationship between the artist and the child in community. Art created in relationship with others bridges barriers, provides an open and trusting environment for expression, and potentially builds a spirit of community.
Our work is holistic and collaborative. We focus on four objectives in our work with children: artistic excellence, academic improvement, social development, and character/spiritual maturity. We seek, where possible, to involve parents and caregivers in art-making with their children. Recognizing the needs of caregivers, we extend our work to assist them in their personal development, self-care, relationship and nurturing of their children. We develop strong collaborative relationships with individuals and organizations, recognizing that we do not work alone and are part of larger movement in restorative transformation for the benefit of children and families.
Our work is purposeful and intentional. We recognize that there are latent benefits of most any arts-focused project or performance. However, employing the arts in an intentional and planned way, we design specific outcomes that lead to the restoration of broken and impoverished individuals and communities. For this reason we expect all artists working with BuildaBridge to thoughtfully write outcomes-focused curricula and projects and to assess their work.
We engage the arts for restorative purposes. What makes art restorative? Restorative art will always point people in a direction that:
- brings an external expression of an inner reality, creating a critical awareness that assists their understanding of their place in the world;
- raises one out of, or improves, a situation in which one finds oneself, and helps them move to a better way of thinking, believing, feeling, and ultimately living;
- provides an opportunity to experience a new way of life, and to try it on as a rehearsal for change;
- confronts both the evil in society and the consequences of personal actions;
- instills a sense of awe and wonder, leads to experiences of transcendence; and, ultimately
- leads to an understanding of one’s purpose in the world, most often expressed in acts of love through service to others with the goal of creating a better world.
Our work is focused on holistic restorative transformation (organic). The goal of transformation is to attain peace, justice, well-being, restoration, a new vision for life–holistically in the spiritual, social, economic, emotional, physical, and political lives of people, communities and societies.
Capability Statement for the Organization
BuildaBridge has well-developed financial, fund accounting & auditing and management systems along with experienced and expert senior leadership capable of managing the organization. BuildaBridge has been the recipient of millions of dollars in federal, state, city, foundation and corporate grants over its ten-year status as a 501c3 charitable organization. BuildaBridge maintains appropriate checks and balances, and has never had a conditional audit or ethical challenge. BuildaBridge Co-Founders Corbitt and Nix-Early are professors, practitioners, authors and invited speakers and trainers locally and internationally in the field of transformation, art, human and community development. The organization maintains its registration with the Pennsylvania Bureau of Charitable Organizations and fulfills all requirements of laws governing nonprofit corporations.What is the mission of BuildaBridge International?
Our mission is to engage creative people and the transformative power of art making to bring hope and healing to children, families, and communities in contexts of crisis and poverty. BuildaBridge offers 3 unique programs featuring cross-cultural perspectives and arts-integrated approaches that are child-centered, trauma-informed and hope-infused: Community, International and the Institute for Arts and Transformation.
Who Benefits from our Services?
Our constituent audience consists of the lower 20% of the US and world’s population who suffer in abject poverty, physical pain, homelessness and emotional suffering as a result of war, catastrophe, human trafficking, abuse and neglect. BuildaBridge recognizes that these people desire to live with hope and joy, strong connections to family and local communities, fair and satisfactory employment, and meaningful visions for their future and the future of their children.
How many people does BuildaBridge serve?
8,809 children, families and communities have been served BuildaBridge domestically and abroad since inception in 1997.
3,354 children and families have been served through the Community Arts Program (Discovery, Artology and Healing Programs) in Philadelphia since 1999.
1,270 artists and community workers have been trained in how to utilize the arts for transformation, which includes BuildaBridge’s first Institute among 15 fighting congregations in Costa Rica, our Annual Institute for Arts and Transformation and other mini-institutes conducted around the world.
How many people volunteer with BuildaBridge?
Over 980 people have volunteered over 90,000 hours of service since 1997. The estimated value of our volunteers’ time is $2,031,854.22 (using the nationally estimated value of volunteer time of $22.14 per hour).
Who are some of the organizations that collaborate with BuildaBridge?
Amity Foundation, China
Art-Reach, Philadlephia
Centro de Alcance, Guatemala
Danzante Inc, Harrisburg, PA
Drexel University’s Bridging the Gaps Program
Eastern University
Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance
Inspiration Center, Nairobi, Kenya
International Ministries of American Baptist Churches
Jane Addams Place
John B. Stetson Middle School
Lutheran Children and Family Services
Oxford Circle Christian Community Development Association
People’s Emergency Center
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Refugee Family Services, Atlanta, GA
Saint Barnabas Mission
School District of Philadelphia, Office of Homeless Initiatives/Office of Student Support
The Second Baptist Church of Germantown
UNICEF-Haiti
Violette de Mazia Foundation
Women Against Abuse, Inc.
Woodstock Family Center
Who were the organization’s largest funders in 2012?
$82,019 UNICEF-Haiti
$50,000 School District of Philadelphia
$9,065 Philadelphia Cultural Fund
$8,000 IKEA
$36,838 in contributions from the Board, individuals and organizations
Financial Status for 2012. View 2012 Audit here
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Art-Reach, Philadlephia
Centro de Alcance, Guatemala
Danzante Inc, Harrisburg, PA
Drexel University’s Bridging the Gaps Program
Eastern University
Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance
Inspiration Center, Nairobi, Kenya
International Ministries of American Baptist Churches
Jane Addams Place
John B. Stetson Middle School
Lutheran Children and Family Services
Oxford Circle Christian Community Development Association
People’s Emergency Center
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Refugee Family Services, Atlanta, GA
Saint Barnabas Mission
School District of Philadelphia, Office of Homeless Initiatives/Office of Student Support
The Second Baptist Church of Germantown
UNICEF-Haiti
Violette de Mazia Foundation
Women Against Abuse, Inc.
Woodstock Family Center
Who were the organization’s largest funders in 2012?
$82,019 UNICEF-Haiti
$50,000 School District of Philadelphia
$9,065 Philadelphia Cultural Fund
$8,000 IKEA
$36,838 in contributions from the Board, individuals and organizations
Financial Status for 2012. View 2012 Audit here
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