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Alex Charalambides (center) with youth from WCAC's Job & Education Center
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Worcester, Massachusetts - Worcester Community Action Council, Inc. has been awarded two local cultural council grants to augment cultural programming at the anti-poverty agency. The Worcester Arts Council awarded WCAC $2,800 to support Creative Connections: Poetic Pathways Project at its Worcester-based Job & Education Center, while the Southbridge Cultural Council awarded $400 to support a performance by the Raices Latin Dance Troupe at the agency's Head Start center located in Southbridge.
"We are thrilled to have received the support of our local cultural councils," noted WCAC Executive Director Jill Dagilis. "These resources will play an important role in our ability to offer youth enrolled in our Job & Education Center (JEC) and families enrolled in our Head Start program a dynamic cultural experience."
The Worcester Arts Council funded Creative Connections Project will support a series of spoken word workshops for the at-risk youth enrolled in the agency's Job & Education Center. Intended to build off the success of a similar 2017 program, this project will incorporate a visual/creative art component where in participants will be instructed by local experts to express themselves in multiple mediums, resulting in a participant-created mural to be hung within the JEC at the conclusion of the project.
"Our intention is to expose the youth enrolled in our program to new outlets of creativity while encouraging the expression of their varied pathways of life through spoken word and creative arts," noted Dagilis.
Alex Charalambides, founder of
Worcester Youth Poetry and Managing Director for MASS Leap, a non-profit organization dedicated to expanding opportunities for teens to pursue self- empowerment and social equity through spoken word, will run the workshops along with noted local visual artist Ana Perez this spring. A public celebration and unveiling of the mural is planned at the conclusion of the project.
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Last year WCAC's Head Start program hosted the Southeast Asian Coalition's Worcester Youth Nian Dancers - this year Raices Latin Dance Troupe will perform.
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The Southbridge Cultural Council supported performance by the Raices Latin Dance Troupe will be the highlight of the Head Start program's annual MultiCultural Festival on April 25th, where children and families will participate in various cultural crafts and enjoy a variety of foods from around the world. Although the craft and food portions of the festival will be open only to enrolled Head Start families d
ue to space constraints within the classrooms, the dance performance will be open to the public in the auditorium where the center is located at the former Southbridge High School, 25 Cole Avenue, Southbridge.
"Given the challenging and often divisive tenor of our times, we welcome the opportunity to highlight and celebrate the diverse cultures which together form the fabric of our greater community," added Dagilis, noting that the performance will support the Head Start children's knowledge and appreciation of music and dance, which plays a critical role in their language learning, reading ability, creativity and overall growth and development. Raices Latin Dance is based in Worcester.
The Worcester Arts Council and the Southbridge Cultural Council are local agencies, supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
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