Hollywood Arts

Hollywood Arts is a full-service art center opened in Hollywood, California. The program is unique in that it is designed to give homeless, runaway and at-risk teenagers access to the arts both for art therapy and to teach job-readiness and life skills that will help them get off the streets and change their lives. Their clients are 13 years and older and generally fall into one of several categories: victims of physical or sexual abuse; emancipated and at-risk foster care youth; children of homeless parents and/or members of the gay, lesbian, and transgender community who have been socially-rejected by family and peers.

The Hollywood Arts programming models gives teenagers a chance to attend Out-of-School classes (classes offered to youth not in school during school hours) in a variety of creative activities including digital training, video-gaming, music recording, dance, theater, fashion, urban arts (painting and drawing), screen-play writing, and ceramics in a format that is curriculum-based, dedicated and sequential. This format mirrors traditional school-based learning and gives the teenagers the necessary attention to create significant emotional transformations such as improved self-esteem and self-confidence. This format also creates increased educational improvement by teaching life skills such as problem solving, team work and critical thinking and job-readiness skills such as math, English and computer literacy.

Hollywood Arts uses the arts as entry points to stimulate emotional well-being and intellectual curiosity that better equips the clients to commit to shelter, employment and mainstream culture.

External links

* http://hollywood-arts.org/

See also

* Street children
* Runaway child
* Non-profit organization
* Homelessness
* Humanitarian aid