Young Artists' Day

Funding Proposal Young Artists’ Day – Kelowna B.C.

About us The Canadian Mental Health Association is one of Canada’s oldest voluntary, non-profit organizations with over 130 branches in every province and territory. Nationwide, the CMHA’s mission is to promote the mental health of all and supports the resilience and recovery of people with mental illness through advocacy, education, research and service.

CMHA has been in Kelowna since 1956. Our organization has been providing innovative services and supports to assist people with mental illness and created successful opportunities to promote mental health and wellness within our community. We believe that people can recover from mental illness when they play an active and empowered role in their journey.

Young Artists’ Day (funding request) In addition to the 2010 art exhibition “Artists Among Us” and to mark the start of the National Mental Health Awareness Week we would like to organize a “Young Artists’ Day” for children and youth between 6-16 year to provide these young artists with an opportunity to play, learn and explore their creativity in an artistic way. We want to encourage them to use their imagination and creativity to learn to communicate in the universal language of art and appreciate each other’s differences.

The artwork created by the children & youth on the “Young Artists’ Day” would be displayed on a designated wall during the “Artists Among Us” exhibition to validate their accomplishment, encourage their creativity and help them feel good about them selves. Our previous “Artists Among Us” exhibitions were a huge success in providing a bridge between the artists and the community and thereby reducing stigma about mental illness and provided a perfect link between creativity, wellness and community. Over 220 people attended the two-day show in 2009.

Promotion We are able to promote the “Young Artists’ Day” through our website, media and network of community partners who work with marginalized families with children to give them the opportunity to forget their worries for a day and have fun while exploring their artistic talents. We are expecting a minimum of 100 children plus their parents and want art materials available for the young participants to take home.

Anti Stigma Campaign We consider the “Young Artists’ Day” a great fit with the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) who strongly recommend to making the child and youth segment a central part of their anti-stigma campaign. MHCC believes that successful interventions with children and youth will help create long term change in attitudes and behaviour related to mental illness. Early intervention can make an enormous difference over a lifetime.

Young Artists Day main goals are to: - Promote wellness and health - Look at art as an avenue to support mental health - Encourage children & youth to view differences as an opportunity to learn from each other in order to reduce (self) stigma and discrimination of people living with mental health issues and their families

Costs for 100 children & youth with parents: $5,500 - Marketing and promotion prior to event: advertisements newspapers, posters ($1000) - Promotional materials at event: printed balloons and art materials for at least 100 children to take home such as paint, pencils, paper ($1500) - Art material to provide participants during the event: paint, clay, paper, brushes, pencils ($750) - Staff preparation event and 4 staff on site ($1000) - Refreshments and snacks ($250) - Venue and rental tables and chairs ($1000)

Funding Aviva’s funding would help us create this unique and memorable event, the “Young Artists Day”, for the children & youth in our community.

Measures of success - Registration of visitors (parents) and participants (young artists) - Feedback - evaluation forms - Photos of the event and young artists at work