Empowering Youth and Communities
Sing for Hope's Education program harnesses the transformative power of the arts to foster positive change and growth among young people, educators, and communities. Through engaging arts classes, workshops, and a curriculum aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the program cultivates a creative and service-oriented approach to learning and activism.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)
Sing for Hope’s Sustainable Development Goals Arts Curriculum is informed by The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, a collection of seventeen interlinked objectives designed to serve as a “shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.” Sing for Hope’s signature creative service learning curriculum centers on using the arts to drive awareness and action for the Sustainable Development Goals. (“Use your art to create a better world… UN-style!”). Our curriculum is ever-evolving and delivered in a variety of ways across all of our Education programs and around the world.
Launched in 2020, the HandaHarmony Sing for Hope Global Youth Initiative leverages youth creativity to drive the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, in alignment with The United Nations Decade of Action. This program is made possible by a transformational 10-year grant to Sing for Hope by The International Foundation for Arts and Culture (Dr. Haruhisa Handa, Sing for Hope Global Patron). HandaHarmony’s flagship annual event is The United Nations High-Level Political Forum, a destination event for our students and an international symbol of youth arts empowerment. In addition to the UN HLPF, HandaHarmony features additional UN creative service learning events in partnership with UN Women, UNICEF House, etc.
The Sing for Hope Youth Chorus is Sing for Hope’s musical ensemble that provides creative service learning through rehearsal and performance for children and youth ages 8-18 via an innovative multi-age model. At once global and hyperlocal, The Sing for Hope Youth Chorus is our pride and joy, currently centering a core group made up of young singers from across the New York Metropolitan area. Performing subset groups include Girls’ Chorus, Gospel Choir, and more.
Sing for Hope offers a host of activations and productions including Pauline García Viardot’s 1867 “eco-feminist opera” The Last Sorcerer (centering SDGs 5 and 13), Cabaret Weimar: The Wanderer, our CDC Foundation-funded vaccine confidence musical Don’t Throw Away Your Shot!, and more.
Launched during the pandemic in response to the reported isolation and disengagement experienced by high school students, Sing for Hope’s Careers in the Arts series is an online resource that brings students directly into conversation with arts leaders via Zoom. Focusing on a variety of creative industry paths, Careers in the Arts guests have included Rwandan women’s drumming ensemble Ingoma Nshya, Broadway star Kimberly Marable, the production team of The Drew Barrymore Show, and other leading creative practitioners. The program has reached over 2,000 students (the majority of them Title I and/or from under-resourced schools) and has employed artists across a broad range of creative disciplines including music, theater, television production, visual art, stage management, and lighting design. In FY23, the program expanded internationally to serve Sing for Hope students at Shanti Bhavan in India. Sing for Hope’s Paul Foundation Young Artist Resource Lab: Careers in the Arts Series is made possible by a generous multi-year grant from The Beatrice and Reymont Paul Foundation.
In partnership with Broadway for Arts Education (BAE), Sing for Hope is proud to provide year-long music education to students from impoverished backgrounds at Shanti Bhavan, a residential school in Baliganapalli, Tamil Nadu, India. As shown in the Netflix documentary series, “Daughters of Destiny”, which chronicles the lives of five students, Shanti Bhavan empowers and uplifts children from the lowest castes to take control of their lives and bring positive change to their families and communities.
Led by professional teaching artists, programming for the 300+ students receiving 17 years of educational intervention from age four through college graduation includes private music lessons in piano, voice, and guitar, three choirs for middle and high school students, and general music for Kindergarten – Fifth Grade.
Sing for Hope programming serves children and adults with disabilities and economically disadvantaged children in Port-au-Prince and Jacmel, Haiti. In partnership with The St. Joseph Family and BAE, Sing for Hope provides salaries for teaching artists local to the community and funds for all classroom materials including instruments, art supplies, and clean water.
Beginning during the pandemic in October 2020, Sing for Hope is happy to provide virtual music, graphic design, and video editing classes to students at a bilingual educational institution located in Ecuador. Together with BAE, Sing for Hope programming supports the community and a local professional music teacher with curricula, materials, supplies, and professional development.
Designed to foster dialogue and encourage positive social change through the arts, Artivism: The Power of Art for Social Transformation, co-founded and co-produced by Argie Agelarakis and Carolina Cambronero Varela in the Spring of 2021, is an interdisciplinary, multi-institutional collaboration between Adelphi University, The Gottesman Libraries of Teachers College | Columbia University, and Sing for Hope. With weekly multi-modal events offered free of charge and open to all, Artivism presents diverse artists, activists, academics, and creative practitioners from around the world in conversations, workshops, and performances that center on how the arts transform lives and environments hyperlocally, citywide, nationally, and globally.
Sing for Hope has given me a safe place to go every day where I am free to express myself emotionally, mentally and physically. Without it, I wouldn’t be who I am today: a leader in my community with my eyes set on college.
Sing for Hope is an approved NYC DOE vendor
