Crossroads Village, the new home of Crossroads for Women (CRFW), has been chosen as the permanent home for a 10-panel mural created by local youth artists as part of the University of New Mexico’s Youth Engagement and Action Through Art project.
A special unveiling event to celebrate the artists and showcase their work to the public will be held on Wednesday, August 4 from 10am-1pm at Crossroads Village. This event will be held in conjunction with CRFW’s annual Back-to-School Resource fair for CRFW families.
The Youth Engagement and Action Through Art mural project was initially motivated by the murder of George Floyd and the need to promote racial and social justice. The purpose of the mural project is to engage youths and diverse multi-stakeholders in thinking about taking action to promote social and racial justice.
University of New Mexico’s (UNM) Venice Ceballos, Program Operations Director under the Office for Community Health’s (OCH) Community Health Worker Initiative (CHWI), along with a team of seven community health workers (CHWs) under the leadership of CHWI’s Alisa Lucero and Virginia Sedore, have created an amazing 10- panel mural. The panels will be permanently installed at Crossroads for Women located at 239 Elm St NE in downtown Albuquerque.
Funding for the mural project came from a variety of sources, including local businesses and private donors. Primary funding for fabrication of the mural panels and stipends for youth artists was provided by the New Mexico Chapter of the Scholars Strategy Network (NM SSN) with support from NM SSN co-chair, Dr. Janet Page-Reeves.
A team of seven CHWs engaged 18 youth (ages 14-21) as the primary designers and artists in collaboration with local mural artist Lonnie Anderson to produce an amazing piece of community artwork. A key purpose of the mural project is to identify policy-related concerns and launch action for change. The youth artists are also participating in two trainings that include the national policy advocacy organization, Moms Rising, who is teaching how to tell their stories to policy makers; and UNM scholar, Dr. Shannon Sanchez-Youngman, who is teaching how to mobilize their creative cultural work for community action.
In anticipation of the mural unveiling on August 4, CRFW will be featuring profiles of each youth artist on their social medial channels over the next few weeks. To view the artist profiles, follow CRFW on Facebook and Instagram. Be sure to also check out and follow the Youth Engagement and Action Through Art’s new Facebook page and Instagram account.
images courtesy of Youth Engagement and Action Through Art