upcoming grant deadline: 05/15/2024
Michelle will create the Write the World project, an artistic outreach endeavor, to provide an outlet for artistic expression and a creative community for underserved children in communities around the world. Beginning in Nicaragua, Michelle and her change partner, Kao, will offer visual art, storytelling, and poetry workshops for children at the Barrio Planta Project school in San Juan del Sur, help them compile their work into a chapbook, and begin to connect the children in Nicaragua to children in St. Paul, MN, through a pen pal/art exchange. The three main goals of the project are to help staff at Barrio Planta Project create a local space for cathartic artistic expression, empowerment, and community-building among the children; to raise awareness first in the Philadelphia-area and then around the United States about the children's experiences with the intense intersection of poverty, culture, and the tourist industry in San Juan del Sur, including their struggles and triumphs; and for Michelle and Kao, to engage in a reciprocal process of teaching and learning with the children as they navigate language, culture, and experience in sharing and documenting their artwork.