‹ Indietro

“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” 

-Toni Morrison

 

 

Our Vision for Arts in Action

The Racial Unity Team helps build awareness and educate New Hampshire school students about diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. NH legislators are questioning the value of academic studies of our history of discrimination. Legislation has been written stating that “diversity education is divisive;” whereas, the common goals of our teachers, RŪT, and the curricula are to help students to do heart work while building their knowledge of ways that the status quo hurts all of us and especially people of diverse races and ethnicities.

• We want to broaden student access to multicultural artistic and cultural experiences .

• We invite teachers to be part of the leadership in order to institutionalize and advance the influence of the Arts in Action project. 

• We want to make a difference in students’ becoming upstanders when they see injustice. 

• We want to assist in their learning to govern their voices - encourage people to listen to them through conversation, not argument. 

• We provide ways to find commonalities with others to find solutions to problems, speak out against bullying, write a letter to the editor or to a company concerning an injustice, or to stand up to friend who is practicing bias or discrimination. 

We hope everyone involved will be inspired by the work of our students, watch a video of their presentation, listen to a podcast session involving students, read about the projects they have worked on  about diverse characters and figures in society who are not like themselves and support them to bring change for the better in the communities they live in.  

 

2023 Governor’s Arts Education Award Recipient

Empowering Public Schools

 

The Racial Unity Team has been selected as the 2023 N.H. Governor’s Arts Education Award recipient. This award recognizes an individual, nonprofit organization, school district, or community that has made an outstanding contribution to arts education within the past three years through sustained contributions to arts education in the classroom, leadership in a school, and the implementation of a comprehensive arts curriculum to arts education.

Piloted in Exeter High School and now in its fourth year of building awareness in communities, Arts in Action has been tested in Bow, Oyster River, and Dover high schools. The direct connection between students and their surrounding community has a twofold effect; students begin to realize through their classroom learning experience that members of their community are not only interested in what they have to say, but also that they are willing to help.

The Racial Unity Team’s innovative and inspiring Arts in Action project provides students with sustained opportunities to hear a multiplicity of voices that round out a classroom’s curriculum and to share the  experience and expertise of informed people in the community and across the nation, and it offers a platform for students to voice their lived experience and hopes for the future.

 

Our Programs

At Racial Unity Team, we offer a range of programs to support our community-to-school partnership.  Our programs are designed to meet the unique needs of each individual school we serve.

Our Success Stories

As students have said after being in the Arts in Action mural project,

“We all have to work together to make this a better place for all.” 

“Everyone should get an equal portion of life, uninhibited by systemic racism, oppression, and systemic inequality that America is built on.”

“People shouldn’t have to live in fear. I want to make this world a better and safer place.”

“I was inspired throughout all the drafts of my art by the saying, “Hate has no home here.

 

 High School 9th-grade student comments:

  

Everything that I have learned in this unit has made me really reflect back on my own history and provoked me to be more aware of how racism is happening so often that is going unnoticed, and after watching these videos I feel inspired to do something about it.

 

This whole unit has changed my thinking, since it has broadened my horizons and helped me understand different perspectives and opinions that I hadn’t thought about before. 

 

This unit has made me think more about the world around me and how I can make it better. 

With few Asian students in my school I knew how important this topic is to share with my fellow classmates so I wanted to present my research in an easy form for teens to take in, a cooking show. With help from my friend I filmed the show and included an educational section explaining how misconceptions around MSG are untrue and also harmful to Asian American communities. After editing the video and seeing all my other classmates' projects come together we began sharing them with each other. I remember seeing all sorts of different topics from homelessness to teen mental health. Additionally, Mr. M picked my video to go on the Creative Mornings showcase of excellent student work during the Arts in Action unit. I took the opportunity knowing this showcase would reach outside the school and into the community, just as I had hoped it could. The process was fun and relaxing while also being quite serious (considering the depth of some topics) and academic because much of my research included going through medical and scientific studies. I couldn't thank Mr. M and Ms. P enough for creating a project that gave myself and my classmates space to show who we are and change the world as we did it.

 

For More Information

Please contact Kelly Touhey-Childress at Kellyc@rutnh.org.