 
 |
Community
Writing and Community Arts
About Community Wtiting and Community Arts
Community
writing, arts
and theatre happen when ordinary
people who may not think of themselves as authors or performers meet in
groups to share their creativity; to listen, respect, respond and
revise, and to sometimes self-publish their work. It happens in
libraries, community centres, church basements,
housing projects - and is usually unconnected to credentials or other
formal rewards. It happens because people have something to say, and
because recording their ideas validates their lives or allows them to
come to
terms with personal demons.
About
the Program:
Writers
in the Community, a
collaboration between The Centre for Literacy and the Quebec
Writers’ Federation (QWF), brings at risk adolescents
into the creative mainstream.
Several
“zines” by young writers have been produced this year,
the most
recent by a group of single mothers in a local transition home. Another is is a recent launch of
a collection of poems by young writers from Mountainview, an alternative school in the
youth protection system.
Kadeem,
one of the young writers, was honoured by the Montreal Review of Books
selecting his poem ("If You Have …") for publication. See http://www.qwf.org/programs/pdf/wic_magnetic-poets.pdf
for Kadeem’s poem and other young writers’ work.
Partners in the program have included
Jeunesse 2000, Head &
Hands,
Mountainview High School, Batshaw Youth and Family Services. Leave Out
ViolencE, Tyndale St-Georges
Community Centre, the Jewish General Hospital,
and VOYCE
(Voices of Youth in Care).
Dave Sidaway, The Gazette (Montreal)
© 2009.
|
"Street Stories" is a song created in
2007 as part of Writers in the Community. It’s
about gang violence in Montreal’s NDG neighbourhood.
Check out a news
report and the music
video.
|
|
 |
The free Adobe®
Acrobat® Reader allows you to view, navigate, and print PDF
files
across all major computing platforms. To
download Acrobat®
Reader click on the button. |
|
|
