The Belonging Through Creative Arts Activity Book brings together and distills a year and a half of learning and collaboration from Our Emotional Wellbeing (OEW) - an effort led by IDEAS xLab focused on understanding how hope, belonging, and youth leadership can be supported by arts-based activities and collaboration.
IDEAS xLab partnered with Louisville Youth Group (LGBTQ+ youth) and two after-school programs (Justice League and Bates Community Development Corporation's Kingdom Academy) at Meyzeek Middle School in the Smoketown neighborhood of Louisville, KY, engaging young people (12-20 year olds) to select three Louisville artists for the project. Artist training included hope theory, sense of belonging research, and youth development. Between August 2019 - March 2020 many forms of art were used to engage youth participants in activities like those included in this Activity Book.
In March, 2020 COVID-19 disrupted the project, however the work continued virtually - including the completion of the iMovie by Meyzeek students called A-War-On-Us: It's All Bullying.
The Activity Book has been designed for teachers, artists, and leaders who engage groups of young people in the community. Activity Section 1 includes a series of one-off activities, while Activity Section 2 was designed as a set of activities that build on each other from session-to-session.
This work would not have been possible without the generous support of the Sutherland Foundation, Brown-Forman, the Kentucky Civic Engagement Table, Gheens Foundation, two Arts Fund Grants from Louisville Metro Government, and the Kentucky Foundation for Women.
