In Make a Connection Thru Art, young people learn and apply essential life skills through the unique channel of creative artistic expression.

A growing body of evidence supports the impact of life skills on youth development, including academic success, leadership ability, and drug-resistance. Students often are not fully aware of life-skill concepts and the value of mastering these skills in a way that will enable them to make healthy contributions to their families, their communities, and their own development.

Participants in Make a Connection Thru Art overcome this gap by learning to identify and practice essential life skills.

Program structure and presentation are designed to create opportunities that help students identify and develop these skills in concrete ways. Working together in small groups, students are encouraged to develop their own ideas and themes for their projects.

They learn new ways both to express their ideas and to respect the ideas of others through project planning. They learn to view leadership roles, as well as cooperation with their peers, as responsibilities and tasks necessary for project completion. Directed to think critically, they evaluate their work and the work of others through group discussions.

They learn to listen and to trust one another through group exercises. As they become more deeply involved in the creation process and excited about their progress, they experience the confidence that comes from success.

Students attain these key life skills through discussion, demonstration, and experiencing practical applications. What started as just an idea evolves into something real, and students begin to identify ways in which they can apply these life skills in the future.