AXIS Dance Company
California performing company internationally known for "integrated dance," with community outreach and education component "Dance Access" about disability, accessibility and collaboration.

Accessible Arts Inc.
Equal access to the arts for children and youth with physical, emotional, psychological disabilities. Training, arts demos, tech assistance, resource center, educational materials. Based in Kansas City, Kan.

ActALIVE
"Arts for Creative Transformation: Activism, Lifeline, Inspiration, Vision, Education." Coalition of groups and individuals using arts and media to address HIV/AIDS and other human-development challenges. Prevention, education, amelioration activities. 300 members in 25 countries, including Natasha Community Theater, Zambia; Punjab Lok Rahs, Pakistan; Gram Bharati Samiti, India; YONECO, Malawi; FULDEP, Burundi; Adriana Bertini, Brazil.

American Correctional Association
Membership organization for corrections professionals, students, retired persons, interested citizens, organizations/institutions and corporations. Conferences, conventions, online Corrections Academy, professional certification, training, publications research. Web site has healthcare professional interest section. A Cross-Sector Resource.

Art Start
Artist-run programs for New York City for homeless and at-risk kids. Arts in the Shelters, Media Works Project, Hip Hop Project and Mentoring Program.

Art That Works: T. Allan Comp and the Reclamation of a Toxic Legacy
Profile of T. Allan Comp, founder of AMD&Art (Acid Mine Drainage and Art), a project to reclaim toxic former coalmines using science, design, sculpture and history. Discusses community involvement in a reclamation project in Vintondale, Pa. By Eric Reece, author of "Lost Mountain: Radical Strip Mining and the Devastation of Appalachia" (Riverhead, 2006). Published online in DemocraticVistasProfiles: Essays in the Arts and Democracy by the Center for Arts Policy, Columbia College Chicago, 2006. 12 pp.

Art and Mental Illness: Myths, Stereotypes and Reality
Document bringing together papers presented at a forum held at Neami Splash Art studio, Melbourne, Australia, June 1, 2007. Forum coincided with exhibition, “For Matthew and Others: Journeys with Schizophrenia, ” at Bundoora Homestead Arts Centre and Neami. Includes historic account of the development of theories linking modernism with art of the so-called insane; analysis of changing attitudes to relationship between art and mental illness; presentations by artists whose work was included in the exhibition.

Art for Humanity
Visual-arts organization based in South Africa promoting human-rights awareness. Specializes in print portfolios, exhibitions, billboards and research projects. Newsletter, HIV/AIDS program, "Women Artists and Poets Advocating Children's Rights."

Art for Recovery
Program of the University of California San Francisco Comprehensive Cancer Center. Brings artists, writers, poets, musicians and medical students to patients, their caregivers and UCSF medical staff to "encourage expression through words, images, music and quilt-making." Conceived 1988 by Ernest H. Rosenbaum, M.D.; directed by Cynthia D. Perlis.

Art of Elysium
Nonprofit provider of free arts opportunities to critically and chronically ill youth. Girl Talk (for girls ages 10 - 16) and Yo Lo Tengo (for boys ages 11 - 17) teach young people with physical differences to use expressive arts skills as a means of managing stress, increasing self-esteem and building social skills. Acting, art, comedy, fashion, music, radio, songwriting and creative writing workshops led by volunteer professional artists. Founded by Jennifer Howell, 1997. Based in Universal City, Calif.

Artery: The AIDS-Arts Forum
Online magazine examining history of the AIDS crisis as reflected in the arts. Includes forum, interactive calendar and AIDS-art timeline. Edited by historian Robert Atkins. Part of The Estate Project.

Artfull
National initiative to develop, promote and map the arts and the role they play in improving mental health and wellbeing of people living in Scotland; developing and building partnerships between arts providers and public-sector agencies. Artfull Peer Learning Network: capacity-building program for artists and arts organizations. Reading Room, calendar. Joint initiative developed by Scottish Government’s National Programme for Improving Mental Health and Wellbeing and Scottish Arts Council.

Arthur+martha Community Interest Company
Arts-and-health organization that runs art/poetry workshops with older people in hospitals and the community in North West England using experimental techniques. Exhibitions, publications. Kindess project with older Jewish people in Manchester. Working with Manchester Metropolitan University on research to help formulate future national arts-and-health policy.

ArtistCares
Coalition of artists and mental-health professionals developing model for serving community needs in times of crisis, promoting healing through creative expression. Formed in wake of 9/11

Artists Helping Children
New Jersey-based organization in hospitals clinics and shelters, dedicated to "comforting children with donated artwork, donated murals, donated art supplies, donated toys and a lot of love." Many online resources for creating and locating similar programs.

Artists for Alzheimer's
Initiative of the Healthstone Alzheimer's Foundation. Maintains roster of volunteer artists who want to enhance the cultural life of people with Alzheimer's disease. Artist residencies, performances, gallery exhibitions.

Artists for Human Rights Trust (S. Africa)
Durban-based association that promotes the international cooperation of artists and human-rights organizations; special focus on HIV/AIDS.

Arts Access Aotearoa
Organization in New Zealand specializing in arts access for people with disabilities.

Arts Share
Community arts program of the University of Iowa's Division of Performing Arts, School of Art and Art History and Writers' Workshop. Interactive performances, workshops, readings, residencies and master classes statewide by faculty artists and graduate students. School programs, Arts Share Summer Camp, Patient Voice Project offering creative writing classes to chronically ill hospital patients.

Arts and Healing Network
International resource about healing potential of art. Profiles and links to community, educational, environmental and hospital projects.

Arts for Life
"Restoration and Renewal for People in Crisis Through Creativity, Culture, Community." Consortium of artists approaching healing through art and spirituality. Global antiviolence Communitas Project; The Field Narrative Project supporting humanitarian aid workers; creative aging, mentoring and rites of passage. Based in New York City, founded by Juliet Burger (formerly Institution for Transformation through the Arts).

Arts in Medicine
Program at Shands Health Care, University of Florida, exploring relationship between the art of creativity and the art of healing. Uses visual art to transform medical environment.

Arts of Life
Chicago workspace for artists with developmental disabilities.

Arts+medicine
Bi-monthly magazine distributed to doctors. Devoted to impact of arts on health and well-being. Published by iMedia Asia Pacific in Australia.

Audio Description Associates
Enables arts access for people who are blind or have low vision. Descriptions for live and recorded arts events; recorded tours for exhibits; training for professional describers, docents, guides and children's librarians.

B.C. Artists in Healthcare Society
Promotes establishment of "ArtCare" artist-in-residence programs in hospices, palliative care and healthcare communities in British Columbia, Canada.

BEZERK PRODUCTIONS
Joshua Tree, Calif., nonprofit organization dedicated to mainstreaming the work of mentally disabled artists and offering arts opportunities to people with mental disabilities. Directed by Linda Carmella Sibio.

Bread and Roses Cultural Project
Nonprofit cultural arm of New York's Health and Human Service Union, 1199/SEIU. Latina and African-American women employed in healthcare institutions in N.Y. metropolitan area, New Jersey and Florida. Founded1979 as cultural resource for union members and students in N.Y.C. with little arts access.

Brooklyn College Art Lab
Arts and technology after-school site in Brooklyn, N.Y., serving some 700 students a year from some 30 high schools, averaging 80-100 students per day. Central node for The Arts Network at Brooklyn College Community Partnership, a creative learning network linking the college to the communities of Brooklyn; programs in seven Brooklyn high schools.

CASES
The Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services, New York City. Works with justice system to offer structured alternatives more substantial than probation, but less costly and intrusive than jail or prison. Projects: Art Therapy; Court Employment Project; Community Service Sentencing Project; Nathaniel Project for offenders with mental illness; Parole Restoration Project for parole violators with special needs; Girls Program; Community Prep High School; more.

Center for Health Design
Nonprofit organization concerned with healthcare environments that enhance well-being for patients, staff and visitors through research, design and architecture.

Center for the Arts
New Jersey-based organization focused on youth development through the arts. Drug- and alcohol-abuse prevention programs.

Centre for Arts and Humanities in Health and Medicine
New (2001) research center at University of Durham, England, featuring "medical humanities," arts and health activities in community, arts therapies, research into practice and theory linking arts and health.

Children Helping Children
Musical charity organization based in New York, supporting pediatric wards of area hospitals and national medical organizations through in-hospital concerts and gala fundraising events. Founded by concert violinist Jourdan Urbach when he was seven years old.

Creative Center: Arts for People with Cancer
Community of artists, cancer patients and survivors, trustees, donors, and friends bringing creative arts to people living with cancer; hospital bedside programs, gallery, workshops, residencies, training.

Creative Works Studio
Fully resourced art studio providing skill development, support and vocational opportunities for people living with a mental illness. Provides mentorship and work opportunities. Facilitated by the Inner City Health Program of St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, Canada, in partnership with Good Shepard Non Profit Housing and the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

Creativity Explored
San Francisco galleries showing work by 100 artists with developmental disabilities. Online gallery, store.

Dance4Life
International collaborative youth project against HIV/AIDS. Culminates in young people dancing nonstop for five hours worldwide on Saturday preceding World AIDS Day (December 1). Part of World AIDS Campaign supported by UNAIDS.

Disability in the Arts, Disadvantage in the Arts Australia
National membership network for disability arts in Australia. Newsletter, publications, accessibility issues.

Escape Artists
U.K. arts-and-education charity established 1996. Company works in prisons, young offender institutions, schools, hospices and mental-healthcare centers. Provides artist training in arts and social inclusion. Matches artists and their unique skills with the right client group, facilitates and supports continued work opportunities in the sector.

Fanlight Productions
Distributor of innovative film and video works on the social issues, including disability and the arts. Search catalog for "Changing Identities: A Story of Traumatic Injury and Art," "The Healing Arts: A New Pathway to Health," "Key Changes," "Outsider," "Multiple," "Mister Spazzman," "Phoenix Dance," "When Billy Broke his Head," "White Cane and Wheels." Sales and rentals.

Final Report: Satisfaction and Outcomes Assessment, Hospital Artist-in-Residence Program
Evaluation demonstrates hospital artist-in-residence program is highly successful in relieving patient anxiety, reducing job burdens on caregivers and potentially increasing patient willingness to talk about their condition and treatment options. Written, published by The Creative Center: Arts for People with Cancer, 2002.

Fractured Atlas Open Arts Network
Nonprofit membership organization that provides services and support to artists and arts organizations. Health insurance, news, community arts events bulletin, member profiles.

FreeStreet
Focuses on Chicago's marginalized young people, using the performing arts. TeenStreet Theater employs teens to create boundary-breaking theater; Arts Connect trains medical students to provide arts relief for chronically ill children.

Full Radius Dance
Atlanta-based modern-dance company including dancers with disabilities. Positive Motion program for children with disabilities.

GTC Dramatic Dialogues
Chicago-based Intervention theater, using interactive, issue-oriented theater programs to address sexual communication, date rape, racism, sexism, homophobia and substance abuse. (Formerly Gestic Theatre Company.)

Geese Theatre Company (U.K.)
Prestigious company working within Criminal Justice System. Performances, workshops, groupwork in prisons, special hospitals and probation encouraging self-awareness and exploring change. Founded 1987, based on Geese Theater U.S.A.

Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics
2002 traveling exhibition originating at Herny Art Gallery, Seattle, Wash. Curated by Robin Held, "to bridge art and science by elucidating technical advances for a lay audience and examining ethical issues raised by genomic research." Includes public discussions.

Health and Arts Research Centre
Multidisciplinary research center linking arts, culture and wellbeing. Based in Australia. Research, publications, training, employment creation for local artists and cultural workers. Links to Gunungan Asia Pacific Network for Culture and Wellbeing.

Hearts&Minds
Scottish charity that aims to promote the quality of life for children and elders in hospital and hospice care through the performing arts.

Hospice Arts Forum
Online forum for community artists/arts therapists working with people at the end of life. Separate forums "Arts in Health/Community Arts" and for several therapies: art, music, drama, dance/movement. Sponsored by St. Christopher's Hospice, London, England.

Hospital Audiences
Provides arts programs to New Yorkers who "are isolated from the cultural mainstream," including people in hospitals, shelters, prisons, etc. Exhibitions of art by self-taught artists with mental disabilties. Cultural events, workshops, prevention education, youth leadership, advocacy, schools programs. Founded 1969 by Michael Jon Spencer.

INNER VOICES: Social Issues Theatre
Addresses social/health issues pertinent to college experience through performances on and off campus, with facilitated discussions. Sponsored by McKinley Health Center, Counseling Center and Theatre Department at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign.

Imagination Workshop
California theater artists working with at-risk children in schools, psychiatric patients and homeless individuals.

Inside Out Community Arts
Los Angeles, California-based arts organization that uses the visual and performing arts to promote healthy interaction among diverse at-risk and underserved Los Angeles middle-school youth. Led by trained teams of professional artists and high-school age mentors. After-school arts programs: The School Project, Neighborhood Arts Project, Allen Young School at Metropolitan State Hospital, L.A. Bridges, program at Dubnoff Center for Child Development. Also The Youth & Family Court at The Abbot Kinney Street Festival, Rhythms (music, poetry, dance), visual art production, teacher training. Founded 1996 by Camille Ameen and Jonathan Zeichner.

Institute for Transformation Through the Arts
Washington, D.C., based organization supporting health and wellbeing. Partner in ArtistCares, formed in wake of 9/11.

International Able Art Forum
Japan's Tanpopo-no-ye Foundation for "Improvement of the basis of art activities by people with disabilities and setting up the global network"

International Expressive Art Therapy Association
Professional guild and network for the expressive arts field. Artists, educators, therapists, students, psychologists, counselors, philosophers, musicians, poets, authors, designers. Mainly individuals interested in combining the arts to support well-being and growth. 100% member-supported.

International Peace Tiles Project
Tiled murals by hundreds of children and youth affected by, or at risk of, HIV/AIDS around the world. Exhibited worldwide on World AIDS Day, December 1.

International Playback Theatre Network
Association of Playback supporters, practitioners and groups. Everything you need to know about Playback. Journal, newsletter, calendar.

Keys To The Studio
Music program in Toronto, Ont., Canada, designed specifically for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities. Gives emerging musicians the opportunity to collaborate with professional musicians in one-to-one sessions, rehearsals with bands made up of peers, workshops, recordings, public jam sessions and concert performances.

Leisure Activities and the Risk of Dementia in the Elderly
Study of 469 subjects older than 75 years of age who resided in the community and did not have dementia at base line. Found that of physical leisure activities evaluated [swimming, bicycling, dancing, participating in group exercises, team games such as bowling, walking, climbing stairs, doing housework, and babysitting], “dance was the only physical activity associated with a lower risk of dementia.” Written by Joe Verghese, M.D., et al.; published in New England Journal of Medicine, 2003.

Life Home Project
Program for HIV+/AIDS women and their children in Thailand, including Art Programme and Hands Project.

Little City Foundation
Chicago's LCF has a Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center Web site showing works by artists with developmental challenges from around the world.

Littleglobe Inc.
Artist-run nonprofit based in Santa Fe, N.M., dedicated to "collaborative creative projects in new contexts." Integrates expermental creative approaches with projects that foster civic dialogue and individual empowerment toward social and environmental health and healing. Projects with women at Creative Center for women with Cancer; with residents of a sheltered housing project in Ireland for European Union Festival of Culture; with intergenerational group bridign cultural, geographic, generational and eocnomic boundaries with Santa Fe Opera. Founded by Chris Jonas and Molly Sturges, artist in residence for Santa Fe Opera Outreach projects.

Louis Armstrong Center for Music & Medicine
Music Therapy Department at Beth Israel Medical Center providing services at Music & Health Clinic, in many hospital departments, other clinics and community schools. Programs: Music for AIR (Advances in Respiration); Music for CAIR (Cardiac Advances in Rehabilitation); Asthma Initiative Program; Heather on Earth Multi-site NICU Study on music-therapy interventions for premature infants. Publications, training, education, events and symposia.

Making The Journey: Arts and Disability in Australia
Case studies of arts access organizations, activities and resources in every state and territory in Australia over 25 years. Available online in .pdf, .html and hardcopy. Written by Mary Hutchison, published by Arts Access Australia, 2006.

Memories in the Making
Arts program of Alzheimer's Association in 65 assisted-living homes, nursing homes and community centers throughout Colorado.

Mind the...gap
Innovative performance company based in Bradford, England. Includes work with people with physical, sensory or learning disabilites, low literacy and mental-health histories. Programs include Drama Club, Summer School, Musical Arc and Youth Theatre.

Music for All Seasons
Facilitates the performance of live musical events for confined audiences in children's hospitals, retirement facilities, juvenile detention centers, nursing homes, medical centers, halfway houses and prisons to help aid physical, mental and spiritual healing process. Programs in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and California. Founded 1991 by Rena Fruchter and Brian Dallow.

National Arts and Disabilities Center
Information, resource and training center affiliated with UCLA. National information dissemination, technical assistance, training, referral center dedicated to inclusion of people with disabilities into arts communities; home of Association for Theatre and Accessibility. Project of UCLA.

National Arts and Disability Center
Promote full inclusion of audiences and artists with disabilities into all facets of arts community. consulting, education, directories, bibliographies, careers, networking, funding. Assistive devices, services and products; marketing & publicity; film festivals listing; How to Design an Accessible Web Site. Project of the UCLA Tarjan Center.

National Arts and Disability Network
Creates opportunities for artists with disabilities. Convenings, listerv, directory. Based in California.

National Association of Poetry Therapy
International membership organization of poets, writers, journalkeepers, helping professionals, health care professionals, and educators who work in mental health, medical, geriatric, therapeutic, educational and community settings. Encompasses bibliotherapy (interactive use of literature) and journal therapy (the use of life-based reflective writing) as well as therapeutic storytelling, the use of film in therapy, and other language-based healing modalities. Publications, annual conference, newsletter, events, info on training and certification. A Cross-Sector Resource.

National Institute for Arts and Disabilities
NIAD (National Institute of Art and Disabilities) is an innovative visual arts center assisting adults with developmental and other physical disabilities located in Richmond, CA.

National Network for the Arts in Health
Membership organization with directories and information about arts in healthcare in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Online conferences, newsletter, bibliography, interactive games.

National Theater Workshop for the Handicapped
Academic and practical arts programs for people with physical and developmental handicaps; in Belfast, Maine, and N.Y. City.

NiteStar Program
Drama, music and peer-education for pre-adolescents, adolescents and young adults living with HIV/AIDS. Includes direct service, training and technical assistance. Productions created by members of the company, with followup workshops, heighten awareness, provide accurate information and help to reduce risky behaviors. Founded by Dr. Cydelle Berlin in 1987. Located at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York City, N.Y.

North Carolina Arts for Health Network
Network for patients, practivtioners, advocate of arts for health in N.C. Annual training institute, Web site with resource materials, links, conference listings.

Passion Works
Athens, Ohio, organization that creates arts opportunities for people with developmental challenges.

Prometheus Dance
Modern dance ensemble with community programs in prisons, battered women’s shelters, Alzheimer's Center, public schools. Free, after-school Technical Theatre and Design Program for hearing-impaired and at-risk teens. Elders Ensemble performing in senior centers, healthcare facilities, community events and with the main company in special choreographic projects. Founded 1987 by Diane Arvanites-Noya; directed by Noya and Tommy Neblett. Based in Cambridge, Mass.

Public Art as Social Intervention
"Public Art as Social Intervention - But Now I Have to Speak - Testimonies of Trauma, Change and Transformation," ongoing collective/collaborative project concerned with violence against women.

RAW Chiefs
Youth mentoring progam at RAW Art Works in Lynn, Mass., where youth 15-20 meet weekly for training and then collaborate with art therapists in leading groups.

Regent Park Focus Media Arts Centre
Youth program in Toronto's Regent Park, Canada’s largest public housing community, to develop prevention programs and activities exploring radio and print journalism, and audio, video, photography arts. Catch da Flava Newe, Catch da Flava Radio, E.Y.E. Video Library, Focus Music Studio, Zapparoli Photo Studio. Directed by Adonis Huggins.

Report on Social Healing Arts
Conceptualizes "arts for social healing" as a values-based practice located within three larger, overlapping types of arts for change: (1) arts for community development, (2) arts for social action, and (3) arts for individual healing. Suggests that a key strategy to strengthen the field would be to support new partnerships between and within three constituencies: practitioners of arts, funders and agents of change. Written by Anne and Christopher Ellinger of Zing Foundation; published by the Fetzer Institute, 2005.

Research on Creativity and Aging: The Positive Impact of the Arts on Health and Illness
Study following weekly senior arts programs—a senior choir, a visual arts group,and a multidisciplinary arts group—conducted by professional artists in Washington, D.C., San Francisco and New York City. Average age of participants: 80. Concludes that the positive impact indicated by the preliminary results demonstrate that “community-based cultural programs for older adults appear to be reducing risk factors that drive the need for long-term care.” Written 2001 by Eugene Cohen; commissioned by National Endowment for the Arts, National Institute of Mental Health and AARP; published by American Society on Aging, 2006.

Research: Arts and Healthcare
Brief descriptions, links and conference proceedings from several recent studies on the arts and healthcare. Written, published by Society for the Arts in Healthcare, 2002-2003.

Society for the Arts in Healthcare
Founded in 1991, SAH is dedicated to promoting the incorporation of the arts as an integral component of healthcare.

Stage Left
Grass-roots community-development and social-action performance company based in Calgary, Alb., Canada, "engaging in professional artist-community collaboration." Uses Popular Theater, Theatre of the Oppressed and interdisciplinary Performance Creation techniques. Works extensively with people with physical, sensory, learning and/or developmental disability, brain injury, chronic illness and/or mental illness; lesbigay youth; street-involved youth; politically motivated youth; culturally diverse youth; Ethno-cultural communities; First Nations; and other marginalized communities and their allies ". Recognized for advancing the global disability culture movement, developing Performance Creation Canada network, and conducting Theatre of the Oppressed-based social-justice work. Annually produces Balancing Acts: Calgary's Annual Disability Arts Festival.

Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater
Minneapolis, Minn.-based company that includes "Caring for the Caregiver," helping healthcare professionals find expression for complex emotional issues encountered in their work.

Suite Dreams Project
Rochester, Minn., project that creates healing environments in sick children's bedrooms and hospital rooms.

Tamalpa Institute
Movement-based healing arts program withtraining programs and workshops in the Halprin Process, integrating movement/dance, visual arts, performance techniques and therapeutic practices to support personal, interpersonal and social transformation, teaching new models for health, psychology, art and communication. Co-founded 1978 by Anna and Daria Halprin. Workshops, certification, degrees, professional registrations, CEUs, apprenticeships.

Teenage Life
Organization in Tanzania carrying out projects to educate young people about HIV/AIDS, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), media and culture. Workshops and presentations at Tanzanian universities, schools and communities and 30 cities worldwide. Uses information and communication technology, video, television, radio, music, intercultural exchange, publications, numerous partnerships. Co-founded Tanzanian Youth Network, co-operates an orphanage center for Tanzanian children. Founded in Dar es Salaam, 2000.

The Art of Healing Loss: Support & Renewal for Caregivers and Veterans
Curriculum and training that uses the expressive arts to heal and transform grief and other feelings of loss that result from trauma. Developed by Center for Health and Learning, Brattleboro, Vt.

The Bottom Line: Promoting safety awareness in fishing communities through community arts
Report presenting details of use of a range of arts-based activities including drama, music, writing and graphics designed to promote safety awareness in three fishing communities in Newfoundland. Written by Michael Murray and Neil Tilley, published by Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2005.

The Canvas: National Art Therapy Student Newsletter
Web newsletter by art therapy students at Emporia State U., Kansas, with editors in seven U.S. regions.

The Tape Artists
Three U.S. public artists who create temporary, large-scale murals and installations for teaching and healing, using a special low-density tape in hospitals, schools and psychiatric institutes "looking to positively reinforce healthy processes." Special Project: Project Hope, work in Oklahoma after the 1995 Federal Building bombing, and in New York after 9/11, when they drew life-sized portraits of every lost airline passenger and fireman on the buildings of Manhattan. Web document, "Eleventh of September: an act of remembrance," uses innovative technologies (including Google maps) to compile five years of documentation and biographical information relating to the project and the people depicted.

TimeSlips
Creative storytelling project for people with Alzheimer's Disease and dementia. Training, manual, bulletin board, newsletter.

Tostan
African grassroots organization using the arts in nonformal education in local languages (the Community Empowerment Program) to educate poor villagers in Senegal and neighboring countries about development and human rights. Uses modern and traditional African oral techniques, including theater, storytelling, dance, artwork, song, debate, and the sharing of personal experience. "Community-led successes" in six countries in West and East Africa: abandoning female genital cutting, ending child marriage, promoting grassroots democracy, improving maternal and child health, preventing and treating malaria and more. Microcredit program, prison project.

True Story Theater
Playback Theatre ensemble made up of actors, counselors and educators, executive directors, activists, health care professionals, singers, artists and business consultants dedicated to "social healing" for groups. Performances, playshops, training. Based in arlington, Mass.

VSA Arts Florida
Programs for people with disabilities: development, for youth involved in crime and violence, arts in medicine, professional development for teachers, school and preschool, arts camp, exhibitions, registry, playwright discovery, literacy and more.

VSA arts
Formerly Very Special Arts, national organization promoting inclusion in the arts for people with disabilities.

Veith Street Gallery Studio Association
Organization based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, that supports artists with disabilities and related challenges. Programs: Creative Spirit East artist collective, exhibited through Veith Street Gallery and Pedway Picture Gallery in Dartmouth; Artist in Residence Program; The Visual Connections Project, educational programs for persons with disabilities and community-service providers.

Visible Theatre
New York-based company "promoting social justice and bringing voice and visibility to disempowered populations." True Story Project teaches acting and original performance to adults with disabilities.

Visual AIDS
Increase public awareness of AIDS through visual arts with exhibitions, events and publications. Raises money to provide direct services to artists living with HIV/AIDS.

We, The World
Global network of collaboration among those working for peace, sustainability and transformation. Programs: Public International Events, Interdependence Day, Art for Children's Sake, The International Truth and Reconciliation Hearings, World Communities Interchange, Ethical Impact Reports. A Cross-Sector Resource.

Wellness Partners in the Arts
Durham, N.C., artspace dedicated to improving quality of life through physical movement for aging adults, whether healthy or facing medical challenges.

Youth Uprising
Nonprofit organization, seeded and supported by Alameda County and the City of Oakland, Calif., with wide range of programs and services that develop youth leadership, including arts, helth/wellness, career and education, social entrepreneurship and community building. Grew out of needs articulated by Oakland youth in 1997 after racial violence at Castlemont High School. 2,500 sq. ft. building, Media Arts Center, Dance Studio Center, Moroccan Soul Living Room, Material Arts Studio, Health Clinic, Career & Education Center, youth-run full-service restaurant & catering business.

Zing Foundation
Small foundation in Arlington, Mass., dedicated to to promoting "out-of-the-box philanthropy" and strengthening the field of social healing arts.