Putting It All Together
BuildaBridge, a 501(c)3 non-profit art-education and intervention organization, was founded in 1997 and incorporated in 2000 by Drs. J.Nathan Corbitt and Vivian Nix-Early. Corbitt, a Professor at Eastern University, and Nix-Early, an Academic Dean, met in 1994 while serving as faculty advisors to Eastern University's Gospel Choir, The Angels of Harmony. Their common interest in the arts to bridge barriers of race, class and ethnicity was reflected in the Sing Africa tour (1996) where the multi-ethnic choir participated in racial reconciliation between whites and blacks in post-apartheid South Africa. During this event and subsequent trips to Europe, the response to a multicultural choir demonstrated more than just the effect of music; the group displayed a model of different ethnicities working in harmony. Through active involvement in an artistic endeavor, participants were invited to begin a process of healing and reconciliation.
Beginnings
As a career music educator and cross-cultural consultant in the States and an ethnomusicologist in Africa, Dr.Corbitt understood the power of the arts to provide community identity,better lines of communication, and bridge barriers of difference. As a music therapist and psychologist, Dr. Nix-Early understood the ability of music to develop character and restore hope. Her interest in urban development through the arts, along with Dr. Corbitt’s international experience and expertise, merged into a common concern for the needs of the world at home and abroad. Both desired to equip young artists to express their faith through the arts. They witnessed the transformation of people and communities when people with a passion for the arts develop a passion for people. However, they recognized that,unfortunately, in many communities the arts were not thought of as a vehicle for service.
The potential power of this concept (and the organization formed from it) was to provide hope and healing to vulnerable people and communities in the tough places of the world. They also recognized the need to encourage and develop young artists and to provide a vehicle for professional artists to move outside of their comfort zones. These artists could then reach across personal barriers to build bridges of hope and healing through mentoring relationships.
In 1997 Sarah Wiegner, an American Baptist missionary (ABC-IM) in CostaRica, asked Dr. Corbitt to organize a team of artists. This team would assist the Caribbean Theological Center in Limon, Costa Rica through a community arts institute. The immediate goal of the institute was to train musicians from fifteen churches. Underlying the need for arts training, however, was a goal to bring hope to a torn community;already difficult relationships were exacerbated by an earthquake that left Limon in upheaval. There was ample need for healing and a common vision within this marginalized town of Costa Rica. Through the preparation of the team and the workshop on location, a vision began to form: to train artists to transfer their skills and provide communities with hope through arts-based education and intervention.
Research and evaluation have been at the core of Corbitt and Nix-Early's desire to develop viable programs and services. In 1999 they returned to Limon with a team to continue Institute training and conducted an impact study of the Limon Institute. During this week,they documented the reconciliation of fifteen churches that had ceased to cooperate. They also began to see the need to train artists in teaching methodology, working in multi-cultural teams, and expanding service and arts programs between diverse people and their cultures.
Returning from Costa Rica, they devised a formal structure for locally-based arts activities. In 1999 BuildaBridge International (BI)registered in the state of Pennsylvania as a Non-Profit Corporation; in2000 BI gained non-profit status from the Internal Revenue Service.
Early Programs
Educational Safaris (now BuildaBridge International) became the first program of BuildaBridge. Educational Safaris provided arts-based service and educational travel opportunities to performers and students that wanted to discover the world through art and community development. Safaris traveled to CostaRica, Brazil, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, the Netherlands, Germany and the Czech Republic. After 9/11, the Educational Safaris program was hampered by financial constraints and concern for safe travel. While still planning travel abroad, BI further developed and strengthened local programs and service.
In 2000 Drs. Corbitt and Nix-Early established the Community Arts Program (CAP) (now BuildaBridge Community) to provide direct service to vulnerable children and families. CAP also assisted congregations and communities with an organizational structure for providing quality arts education within their contexts. Five Eastern University volunteers and an Eastern University intern, Janelle Junkin (who later joined BI as a Board Certified Music Therapist and coordinator of the program)provided assistance. CAP now primarily serves homeless children in Philadelphia (in as many as ten homeless shelters each year) with professional resident and volunteer artists.
Taking it to the Streets
In 2001 the Louisville Institute awarded Drs. Corbitt and Nix-Early a research grant to conduct a national research project. Their task was to document the existence and effect of Christian artists and faith-based arts programs working for personal and social transformation within marginalized urban communities. The results of this research were published in a book, Taking it to the Streets: Using the Arts to Transform Your Community (Baker 2003), and would serve as a theoretical foundation for future programs, including BuildaBridge Institute.
In 2002 BuildaBridge established The Institute for the Church and the Community Arts (ICCA) (now simply BuildaBridge Institute). The Institute is a training academy for community leaders, youth workers,faith leaders, teachers, musicians, visual artists, dancers and dramatists who want to integrate the arts effectively in community-based service and mission. Supported by the Department of Human Services in the City of Philadelphia between 2002 and 2005, it has intensively trained over 100 participants in arts-integrated service. In 2006 BuildaBridge signed a partnership agreement with Eastern University to offer, through the Institute, graduate courses for Eastern's new MA in Urban Studies: Arts in Transformation.
In September 2002 BI was invited to partner with the city of Philadelphia, Bright Horizons and McNeil Pharmaceuticals to create a Bright Space within the two largest homeless shelters in Philadelphia(one in North Philadelphia and one in Mount Airy). Bright Horizons was looking for a short-term project; however, due to our larger organizational mission of bringing the arts to at-risk communities, BI sought long-term relationships within the shelter system. After two years of volunteer programming in the shelter system, BuildaBridge was invited to partner with the Homeless Initiative of the School District of Philadelphia. Awarded a contract, BuildaBridge was then able to hire professional artists-in-residence to focus on specific shelters in the city.
BuildaBridge is an “incarnational” organization; as such, it is important that its facilities are part of the community it serves. In February 2003 Corbitt and Nix-Early purchased a 15,000 sq. ft. (1400 square metres) historic mansion in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (in the Germantown neighborhood) that would become the BuildaBridge House. Ten fully-functioning apartments house BuildaBridge offices and a number of the staff, including the Corbitt and Nix-Early families. The mansion also provides affordable housing for like-minded people interested in urban transformation. The BuildaBridge staff has grown to twenty full-time, part-time and volunteer staff.
Currently, BuildaBridge is developing plans to convert the mansion’s carriage house into a functioning art education and therapy studio with space for a resident teaching artist. The Community Studio will provide a safe place for long-term mentoring of children in the community.
In 2006 through the generous contribution of a benefactor, BuildaBridge hired its first Overseas Program Coordinator. This has allowed expanded overseas programs that focus on Arts Relief and Restoration, Goodwill Tours and Cultural Discovery Tours.
The programs of BuildaBridge span the gap between a monocultural community and the “global village.” Through the arts, we provide young people opportunities to explore the world, to broaden their world-view and to mature holistically. BuildaBridge programs are open to people of all ages (with an emphasis on children and youth) regardless of race,national origin, color, religion or disability.