VIA INTERNATIONAL INC

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Grantee Database

Grant Year

2024-25

Grant Program

Creative Youth Development

Award Amount

$16,203.00

Project Description

With support from the California Arts Council, Via International will expand our successful pilot program, Somos La Voz Arts & Cultural Heritage, to offer contemporary and folkloric art programming to approximately 60 Mexican, Chicano, and Latinx at-promise youth in historic barrios of San Diego. Through this program, Mexican and Chicano teaching artists will offer intensive courses in art mediums representative of Chicano and Mexican cultures, such as Son Jarocho, Aztec Dance, Graffiti Art, Painting, and more. These classes will 1) introduce youth to specific art techniques representative of Chicano and Mexican cultures and theory of art as a tool for social justice and 2) connect youth with their unique cultural legacy. Somos La Voz will empower youth who face discrimination and erasure to harness the power of art as an expression of activism and social justice.

Organization Summary

Via works through the paradigm of asset-based community development (ABCD), which is a development practice that centers the community of focus, building on already-present strengths, leadership, and community assets. ABCD works to bring resources to communities of focus to invest in community-sourced and led solutions.
Through our ABCD paradigm, our community development work in San Diego county focuses on art and cultural heritage, youth leadership development, food security and sovereignty, and entrepreneurship, with a particular emphasis on Chicano and Mexican communities. Through all of our programs and interventions we seek to empower communities toward greater self-determination.

Organization