Salud: Healing through the Arts

Project Summary 

Latino youth from the Pilsen/Little Village neighborhood in Chicago stepped up to positions of community leadership during an arts education partnership between a youth-driven local radio station, a national museum and a Latino community advocacy organization.  The Salud: Healing Through the Arts project contributed to a more supportive environment for immigrant issues by:

• performing five new theatre works in front of more than 1000 audience members,
• broadcasting and web-casting youth-produced radionovelas and PSAs, and
• raising awareness of health impacts on the Latino community.

Young people participated in creating and disseminating summer school and after-school curriculum that addressed the impacts of diabetes, obesity and mental and sexual health issues. During the course of the project, high school and college-aged Latinos became involved in local and national advocacy, from an Illinois state campaign to openly discuss mental health issues called “Say It Out Loud” to community organizing for a pathway to citizenship through college known as the DREAM Act.

Project Snapshot: Nadia Sol Ireri Unzueta Carrasco

I participated in Salud from the first year of the project. I was one of 15 people involved in writing and producing radio plays around the topics of health and immigration. For me being part of Salud has been very educational and very rewarding. I work with undocumented Latino youth, like myself, and I think this process of leadership is empowering for us. It is very vital to our mental health. Leadership is a very vital part of moving forward as a community.

Insights

Youth quickly realized the power of media. They know that media influences public opinion and that public opinion in turn influences public policy. SALUD influenced youth to participate in media arts, health advocacy and immigration reform advocacy outside the SALUD project.

The youth-driven project model allowed for natural leadership development. Some of the SALUD youth are now leading the very programs they participated in a few years ago.

Partner organizations reaped unexpected benefits from project participation. The Latinos Progresando theatre group, Teatro Americano, saw a very large increase in audience attendance during its association with Salud. The curriculum developed for the project became the framework for all of the theatre organization’s educational programming.

Staff turnover at partner organizations brought challenges to the project. One partner experienced turnover in multiple key positions during the 3-year project.  In each instance, extra time was needed to bring each new person up to speed with the aims and requirements of the project. very vital to our mental health. Leadership is a very vital part of moving forward as a community.