El Museo del Barrio Educational Programming

The OJJDP FY 09 Earmarks Programs further the Department's mission by providing grants, cooperative agreements, and other assistance authorized by the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, as amended, to organizations identified in the Explanatory Statement Regarding H.R. 1105 (Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009), 155 Cong. Rec. H1653 (daily ed. Feb. 23, 2009) (statement by Rep. Obey, Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations of the House).

Amigos del Museo del Barrio, Inc. seeks support to better manage the demand of educational program requests it receives from schools and community based organizations in their district. They also seek to expand their Arts Partners Programs, which promotes arts education as a crucial component of K-12 curricula and encourages positive inter-cultural experiences, creative self-expression and pride through arts education. Through these programs, the Museum seeks to establish long-term partnerships that include curriculum-planning, professional development opportunities, multiple visits to the classroom by an artist educator, art-making workshops, museum visits, and a final student art project. An important objective of the educational outreach program is to promote diversity, equity and access in the arts by increasing the availability of arts programs to disadvantaged children in underserved schools and community based organizations. El Museo's goal is to offer school children throughout New York City, and in particular in the South Bronx, arts educational programs that help improve their self-esteem, provide an alternative to juvenile delinquency, tap into their talents that lie dormant, to bolster the artistic skills that they possess, encourage local artists to share their skills with the community, and to stimulate an increased interest in art among teachers, parents and community leaders in these New York City neighborhoods. El Museo del Barrio builds in an ongoing evaluation process into its partnership programs and conducts evaluation through direct observation by Museum staff as well as through anecdotal data collected by speaking with participating students and teachers. NCA/NCF