Project Create

Project Create is a community-based nonprofit that promotes creative youth development through multi-disciplinary arts education and art therapy. Project Create teaching artists have been working with children, youth, and families in Washington, D.C. for twenty-nine years. Our students participate in out-of-school-time art classes, workshops, open studio, field trips, and exhibition and performance opportunities. Project Create offers free creative classes and workshops at our art center in the Anacostia neighborhood of Southeast DC in Ward 8, as well as at locations in underserved neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. Courses include visual, performing, and digital media arts classes like drawing and painting, illustration, photography, collage, spoken word, fashion, music production and theater.

OUR MISSION 

Project Create provides opportunities for creative youth development through accessible, multidisciplinary arts education to empower young people and amplify their voices. We collaborate with children, youth and families in an inclusive and supportive community where art is healing and transformative.

OUR VISION

Project Create envisions a world where all children and youth have equitable access to a nurturing, artistic environment where they can realize their dreams, reach their creative potential, inspire their peers, and contribute to their communities.

OUR VALUES

• COMMUNITY: We welcome children and youth of any level of artistic skill, and we engage them through a wide variety of artistic disciplines and a broad range of arts education and enrichment activities. We intentionally curate, co-design, and offer joyful spaces for our students and families to create while connecting with others. We believe that a creative community can promote a sense of belonging and positive identity.
• EQUITY: We promote inclusion, ensure accessibility, and champion racial justice and anti-racism work. We recognize the arts as a powerful tool for social justice to create positive societal change and remove systemic and structural barriers to equality. We stand in solidarity with marginalized communities and offer support by celebrating and amplifying diverse voices.   
• CREATIVE EXPRESSION: We believe that art fosters confidence, self-knowledge and resilience. We value innate creativity and cultivate an open, non-judgmental environment for all to imagine and innovate. We believe in art as an anchor that empowers youth to build personal agency, resist destructive influences and make constructive choices.
• YOUTH VOICE & LEADERSHIP: We intentionally center our youth in organizational leadership and promote youth-created and youth-led programs. Through artistic collaborations between children and supportive adults, our students are encouraged to use their voices to represent and advocate for themselves and their communities, inspiring social change.
• HEALING-CENTERED: We believe in the healing and transformative power of art. We embed trauma-informed and therapeutic art practices in our youth-centered work and design our learning environments to encourage social-emotional wellness. We believe every child should have a safe space to be creative, expressive, and imaginative. 
• OUTREACH & COLLECTIVE ACTION: We believe in the power of community-building and organizing with like-minded partners. We cultivate deep personal connections so we can contribute to and coordinate a community response to expressed needs. We value listening and learning in our outreach, and we operate with empathy and respect for the unique experiences and individuality of each of our students. Working together, we can bolster existing systems to meet the needs of our community. 

OUR GOALS ARE TO:

Create Art, by providing professionally-led visual and performing arts instruction taught by experienced, engaged teaching artists in order to develop students' art skills and provide tools for creative expression, and by offering our students opportunities for public exhibition and performance in order to develop confidence;

Create Opportunity, by offering after-school programming in a safe, structured environment that promotes positive youth development and learning through cultivation of skills including critical thinking and problem solving, effective communication, and leadership; and

Create Community, by connecting students to their local environment through artistic and cultural experiences in their neighborhoods, and by encouraging respectful, supportive artistic collaboration among peers and teachers, in order to develop a sense of belonging, positive cultural identity, and civic engagement.

www.projectcreatedc.org