New Day Art Project for Women
Location
For formerly incarcerated women who do not have a stable environment to return to once their release, this can increase pre-existing mental health issues, or for others be a contributing factor to mental illness. In addition, when you factor the difficulty women have of obtaining employment with criminal records this can also pose a problem for future stability in the community. Through self-expression with arts, formerly incarcerated women can reveal their voices and tell their stories. Our proposed project will consist of providing therapeutic art groups, as well as instruction in graphic design for women. Our project will use expressive art forms to facilitate growth and healing. Artistic exploration provides an outlet to help reduce stress, increase self esteem, and give women a greater insight into their lives and emotions. Since emotional states are seldom logical, the use of imagery and nonverbal modes allows the client an alternate path for self-exploration and communication. Through education in the graphic arts and scholarships available for further continuing education, we believe this will increase their economic power in the community.
I am nominating this project because there is a great need for gender-specific programs, in particular programs for formerly incarcerated and homeless women in Rhode Island. The incarceration of women is linked to a multitude of interconnected issues facing poor women, i.e. addiction, prostitution, interpersonal, poverty, etc. Our Vision is to dramatically change the lives of these women by providing services and skills that will enable them to avoid homelessness, poverty, and abuse in the future, as well as help to shape public policy that will benefit women.
