A Non-profit Organization | Contact

Children's Global Art Exchange

The Children's Global Art & Culture Connection

School art programs in the United States support children in third world countries. Local school children adopt a class in a developing country through the Class-ACT Children's Creative Art Link. Through this process teachers and classrooms across time zones, countries, and cultures, create meaningful connections and provide possibilities for future generations.

Mission Statement:

Our purpose is to foster development of the performing arts, visual arts and technology programming to benefit children in the local community and the developing world.

We maintain a high caliber of arts programming, presenting a broad range of talented local art instructors that deliver quality programs to our classrooms in the United States, and help our children support the process to adopt a classroom in a developing country.

The positive energy generated by Class-ACT programming brings not only transferable skills for children that build confidence and enhance academic excellence, but also carries into the neighborhood, providing arts and cultural enrichment for families and the community at large.

Global Outreach:

Our "global community" outreach component is designed to support arts education for adopted classrooms (and girls education) in developing countries. School art programs link local children with those in adopted classrooms in a developing country where we fund school supplies, school art projects, facility improvements and other educational needs.

Class-ACT is committed to raising funds for art education and to helping children share art through global school networks. These communication links between schools worldwide encourage understanding and acceptance of different cultures and promote peace.

Our projects are created with specific goals in mind, and equip children with:

• Creative problem-solving skills
• Self-esteem improvements though personal accomplishment
• Awareness of their own and others' surroundings
• The power to explore new creative possibilities
• An outlet for self-expression-sometimes, from less-than-perfect situations
• Mind and motor skill connections
• A tool to relay or challenge assumed constraints, beliefs, and norms
• Empathy and appreciation for the differences and similarities in other children's cultures, customs, and struggles

Class-ACT Objectives:

To support performing arts and visual arts programs for elementary school children both at home and in developing countries. We work with schools to build on multicultural assets of the community, and promote cross-cultural understanding as we improve individual artistic skills.

To solicit funding for arts programs through grants, business connections and general fundraising efforts, and tap into major corporations give back programs.

To provide exposure to computer technology that involves a creative arts element.

To establish computer arts and arts education as a tool through which students achieve motivation, self-discipline, understanding of others, appreciation of diversity, and the ability to foster a positive school climate.

To teach locally the value of promoting charitable work for children around the world, and bring assistance to underprivileged and underserved children.

To promote awareness of the existing needs in the developing world, and to teach local children that even small amounts of money can be of great help when donated to children in poor developing countries.

To make a difference in the local art community through involvement of local artists in the instructional program and performances.

To assist students in appreciating their own cultural heritage and the traditions of diverse ethnic and cultural groups around the world. Art programs link local school children to adopted classrooms in the developing world, and thus create a cultural exchange program across continents.

Art Education - A Compelling Need:

Arts education, plainly and simply, improves learning, and leads to greater academic achievement. It enhances a student's creativity and increases creative thinking and problem-solving skills. Arts education has been proven to increase communication skills vitally needed in today's complex society with its emphasis on technology and mass communication.

Arts Education provides children with a foundation, and ultimately an elevated skill-set that is required to compete in a hastily developing global economy. In a recent New York Times article, researchers found that arts classes had broad indirect benefits:

"…Students who study the arts seriously are taught to see better, to envision, to persist, to be playful and learn from mistakes…"

A variety of other studies have also demonstrated that participation in arts programs is critically important to education and learning:

• An educational research firm, CEMREL, Inc., issued a report concluding that in 67 specific studies made in California student achievement in reading, writing and math improved when the arts were included in the curriculum.
• In 1995, the Scholastic Assessment Test scores of students who studied the arts for more than four years were 59 points higher on the verbal test and 44 points higher on the math test than the scores of students with no course work or experience in the arts.
• In 1989, a landmark study from the U.S. Department of Labor on the preparation of America's youth for the workforce concluded that arts education helps students make important advances in the core competencies needed for employment. These competencies include creative thinking, problem solving, and the exercise of individual responsibility, sociability, and self-esteem.

World Peace Through Art Education:

At Class-ACT, we believe the best way to sustain and elevate the development of the human race is to provide future generations around the world with personal growth opportunities. By linking classrooms through cultural art programs we provide children with giveback opportunities to improve service learning, and increase their global awareness, empathy for other cultures, and personal responsibility to world unity.

Program Overview

Programs At Low Or No Cost:

Arts education often faces serious budget constraints, and is usually the first subject area to experience cuts when funding is tight. With a pressing need to cover the performing arts standards, schools will turn to outside organizations such as Class-ACT that can deliver programs at a low-cost or no-cost basis.

Music Programs Fund Arts Education:

Music in schools can provide arts funding for adopted classrooms. We have given instrumental and choral programs through standards-based workshops covering a variety of specialty areas. Creative concerts support adopted classrooms in developing countries with teacher and parents creating the school fundraiser.

Dramatic Arts Can Support Adopted Schools:

School plays fundraise for children in developing countries. Local actors give standards-based workshops that dramatize curriculum-based study materials. Script writing and theatre skills build confidence, and improve language development. Original student plays can support an adopted classroom in a third world country.

Make A Difference With Dance:

Using appropriate dance terminology, imagery and imagination, children discover conceptual and practical forms of dance. Folk dances connect children to adopted classroom art and culture. International forms of dance can enhance the children's fundraising project to bring arts funding to poor schools in developing countries.

Visual Art Supports Underprivileged Schools:

Children share art worldwide. From pencil drawings, paintings and clay sculptures to mask-making and theatrical set design. There are many opportunities for children to get involved in a give back program that will help poor schools.