The ArtReach Institute

In the Fall of 2006, The ArtReach Foundation announced the establishment of the first ArtReach Institute in collaboration with the Pan-Mediterranean Women Artists Network (Femme-Art-Méditerranée, or "FAM"), an organization with formal ties to The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization known as UNESCO.  

The goal of the Institute is to replicate the success of the ArtReach “Train the Trainer” model used in Bosnia where 500 in-country teachers were trained in five years. Teachers and healthcare professionals from around the world will attend The Institute to learn ways to help children, traumatized by violence or natural disaster, heal, regain hope, and resume a path of normal growth and development.

 

Lebanon was chosen as the focus country for the first ArtReach Institute. Teachers, social workers, and other qualified professionals traveled to Rhodes, Greece to attend the ArtReach Institute's Project Lebanon training program, held December 4-9, 2006. 

The multi-disciplinary mix of 38 specialized participants represented five countries, with 26 attendees from Lebanon, three from Greece, one from Jordan, one from Croatia, and six from the USA – plus six ArtReach faculty members.  As individuals and as a group, these professionals devoted their time to personally experience creative expressive arts therapies under the guidance of the ArtReach professional team to accomplish a common goal – to bring healing and hope to the children of Lebanon.

We invite you to follow the "Project Lebanon" experience through the eyes of one of the participants.

ArtReach training for teachers from the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) has been postponed until 2007.