Introduction: Pravah x UWB
Introduction
Star Wong
“Peace Through Unity: A Music for Harmony Production” is a virtual arts festival created by students from the University of Washington Bothell studying creative activism and aiming to inspire social change through the arts.
This project blossomed through a special collaboration with Pravah, a non-profit organization from India that works towards building inside-out youth leadership for social change. Pravah operates at the forefront of youth development work and sustainable social change in India, becoming one of the leading organizations in India for youth volunteering programs. Their mission is to build future-looking and holistic adolescent and youth leaders through psychosocial interventions leading to economic, political, and social inclusion.
Furthermore, Pravah holds an annual “Music for Harmony” festival in celebrating active change in the community and a promising future in which Pravah’s message grows. Music For Harmony has been a youth-led cultural festival with an aim to bring people from all walks of life together to re-imagine a peaceful and harmonious world for all. Since 2002, the festival has been co-led by the youth volunteers of Pravah and brings together various art forms such as music, dance, poetry, and literature to remind us of a message we have always known- there is no way to peace, peace is the way. In 2021, Music for Harmony was organized in parallel by young people in two of the most multicultural societies in the world- India and the United States. This was Pravah’s first collaboration with a US university, heightening the excitement around the process of creating a celebration of the socially engaged arts.
The students involved in curating this festival were simultaneously enrolled in the course at UW Bothell titled, “Creative Activism: Inspiring Social Change Through the Arts”. Notably, this course was both a Discovery Core Experience (DCX) course and a Community Based Learning and Research (CBLR) course.
Courses that fall under the Discovery Core Experience (DCX) are designed to immerse students in more focused learning communities in which first-year and pre-major students “can grow fundamental skills for success, identify and connect with campus resources, engage in reflective practices, collaborate in an inclusive and diverse community, and cross-disciplinary boundaries” (UWB First Year & Pre-Major Program (FYPP)). In partnership with Pravah, students directly had the opportunity to expand individual skills ranging from brainstorming to designing a festival that was shared within the UWB community and Indian volunteers from Pravah.
Courses classified under Community Based Learning and Research (CBLR) revolved around experiences in which “students work individually, in small groups, or as a full class on a project or research-based question identified by a community partner in collaboration with faculty” (Community Based Learning & Research). UWB students met with volunteers from Pravah to introduce the goal of the collaboration and continued to have meetings to participate and support each other in and out of class time to eventually create an arts festival that made an impact in both diverse communities.
Resources:
https://sites.google.com/view/peacethroughunity/home
https://www.uwb.edu/premajor/first-year/discovery-core/discovery-core-overview