Community-based experiential learning through the arts.
Our community-based experiential learning culture together with the arts restores ourselves and our community.
Our learning culture 
draws from the wisdom of our elders for many generations, encompassing two key factors: community and the arts
First
Community
We believe community plays a major role in how we live & learn! Being in genuine community promotes greater life satisfaction and happiness long-term.
”When people are comfortable, safe, and free to enjoy life within a strong community, they are happy – regardless of whether or not they are making any money.
Sara Miñarro PhDInstitute of Environmental Sciences and Technologies (ICTA)
”Art is action and critical reflection in process. You don’t become an artist, you just do!
Augusto BoalTheatre practitioner, drama theorist & political activist
Second
Art
Human beings have forever used art to process, communicate, and transform! Art speaks to all backgrounds and crosses barriers in a fun, simple, and impactful way.
Plenty of work ahead
50
Low-income communities have fewer public parks
49
Reduction in access to the arts for non-white youth since the 80's
2,000,000
Youth in the US who don’t have access to arts education
Learning approach
Learning through community
Our elders modeled to us the wealth that community brings into our lives and how unification creates liberation.
Being in community immediately establishes the basis of respect, care, responsibility and moral values. A diverse community helps everyone develop soft skills such as relationship-building, communication, social-emotional awareness, and empathy which are crucial for navigating through life. Being in relationship with people who are different than ourselves expands our compassion, maintains our curiosity, and motivates us to work through relational issues.
We believe true wealth is in the things unseen. It is wisdom imparted from an elder, children laughing under the trees, self transformation, making a meal together from the vegetable garden, a supportive postpartum network, community joy, etc.
Our ancestors valued, as Dr Jessica Gordon Nembhard calls it, “community wealth”.
As a community cooperative, we give ownership and stake in the direction we are headed. We believe that having ownership and stake in community generates empowerment. When we are unified as a community and empowered with community wealth, we are liberated.
”Community wealth is defined as the pooling of local resources, especially finance capital, but not just money. Shared skills and activities – for the purpose of community well being and betterment. Creating surplus and leveraging pooled resources in order to better allocate towards grassroots community development.
Dr Jessica Gordon NembhardPolitical Economist, Author, and Professor
Learning approach
Learning through the arts
We believe every human being is an artist. “You don’t become an artist, you just do.”
Doing art expands our perceptions of reality and all the possibilities within it! When we share an artistic creation with the world, we awaken in others the same perceptions and process that led us to that final creation. Art helps us externalize our reality into a metaphor, where any imagined outcome is possible. It is in transforming our reality, that we can transform ourselves. It is an act of liberation!
At FAM, we engage in experiential learning through the arts. We learn how to express ourselves through various mediums, while collaborating as a team to express a larger vision or idea. When people take an idea from start to finish together, they learn deeply about themselves and ways to work as a team in a really fun way.
Our personal journeys of transformation through the arts have influenced the way we shaped FAM. With over 30+ combined years of experience domestically and internationally, we saw firsthand the impact that art can have in people’s lives.
We stand by our mission and vision:
We restore ourselves, we restore our communities, we restore our world.
