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In 1996, with
the help of neighbors, friends, and especially youth from
the community, South Boston artist Michael Dowling began
the process of reclaiming the unsightly, vandal-ridden slope
behind South Boston High School with the goal of transforming
it into a sacred space that all the diverse people who live
here can regard as belonging to them.
The Medicine
Wheel Youth Program is central to this process. The Medicine
Wheel Youth Program is a paid employment program in South
Boston for youth ages 14 to 18 In summer, students work
25 hours a week for 8 weeks on various individual and group
projects as part of the main Medicine Wheel public art projects
at No Man’s Land and its Poetry Path. The season culminates
with a Community Day and performance and showcasing of the
summer’s accomplishments in gardening, landscaping,
environmental works on the site (erosion control, water
collection devices, etc.), sculpture, drawing, poetry, and
bookmaking. Fifteen students are enrolled in the summer
session.
In 2000, the
program was extended to include a fall session in which
students work on the annual Medicine Wheel installation
at the Boston Center for the Arts, and a spring segment
of early gardening and other projects at No Man’s Land.
In 2004 the program was expanded again to include a year-round
after school program in collaboration with South Boston’s
Odyssey High School.
The Medicine
Wheel after school arts program at No Man’s Land goes
beyond providing cultural enrichment. It grows out of the
notion that by bringing an artistic, nonverbal perspective
to topics in science, math, history, and other academic
subjects, we can promote students’ access to a deep,
intuitive way of knowing things that enhances their learning
capacities in the classroom. This program also brings together
youth from the neighborhood who attend school elsewhere
with youth from the school who live in other neighborhoods,
promoting friendship and a sense of community between traditionally
hostile groups.
Students are
recruited from South Boston and from South Boston’s
Odyssey High School. Most continue with the program for
2 or 3 years. An important aspect of the program is building
a bridge between the community and the school in a city
where very few students attend school in their own neighborhood.
About half the students are girls and half boys. Racial
breakdown is approximately 40% white, 40% black, 10% Hispanic
and 10% Asian or other.
In 2002 the
program was awarded the Boston Peace Party Community Star
Award from the Harvard Youth Violence Prevention Center
for outstanding work in fostering peaceful neighborhoods.
It was also honored by Boston’s Mayor Thomas Menino
on the occasion of receiving the city’s only 3-year
Safe Neighborhoods Youth Fund Grant.
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