PYE Global works with a growing number of organizations worldwide that use the Creative Community Model for youth camps and adult trainings.

Stories from Asia

Dream A Dream New Partnership in Bangalore Dream A Dream provides critical life skills training to children from vulnerable backgrounds in India. They have a big dream of reaching 240,000 children in the next five years. To achieve this, they are partnering with PYE Global to adopt our Creative Community Model and to train their program leaders. In February, Charlie and PYE Global facilitator Nadia Chaney spent 3 weeks in Bangalore training staff and volunteers and leading a 3-day arts empowerment camp for youth. "Being at the training and camp will forever change the way I teach,” said a teacher from a Dream A Dream partner school. “I realized I never really listen.” The youth were equally enthusiastic. “This was the best experience of my life,” said one participant. “I see what's possible when we all work together.  We all care about the people and the environment that we live with,” said another. The work in India was transforming for our PYE Global program leader Nadia, as well. As a first generation Indo-Canadian born in Ontario, Canada she has struggled with her cultural identity her whole life. “My journey to Bangalore was professionally rich and personally transformative,” she wrote. “Our delivery of the Creative Community Model was smooth and graceful and clearly had a meaningful impact. It was also a significant marker on my own inner journey. As an Indo-Canadian, I have often felt that I belonged neither in Canada nor India. This work, which challenges crystallized notions of identity, and invites the complexity of the whole person, encouraged a new vision of myself as a person who has a lot to share, not in spite of my socio-cultural/racial location, but because of it.”   “Our new partnership with PYE Global has come at a critical juncture to help us achieve our vision,” says Vishal Talreja, founder and Executive Director of Dream A Dream. “PYE Global’s Creative Community Model will enable us to train our staff, build sound principles of engagement with children, and create a scalable, replicable model for life skills development.” Nadia is PYE Global’s regional coordinator for the India project. If you have ideas or want to lend support, please contact her at nadia@pyeglobal.org.

Stories from Africa

Uganda and South Africa Empowering Thousands of Youth We are now making twice yearly visits to Uganda and South Africa where our work continues to spread and deepen. We were invited to work in the Eastern Cape region of South Africa by our new program partner ASAP (African Solutions to African Problems). The Eastern Cape is an area particularly hard hit by HIV/AIDS and poverty. It has the largest percentage of households headed by youth in South Africa. ASAP called on us because the Eastern Cape communities with were losing their teens in droves to drugs, HIV, and migration to the cities. On our two visits to the East Cape we trained many young leaders who then returned home to organize youth groups focused on life-skills and leadership training. Ugandan facilitators from the Creative Facilitation Team accompanied us on both trips and co-led the trainings and youth camps. ASAP has now hired Xola Yoyo, a fantastic young leader from the Eastern Cape to lead their PYE Global programs in the region. There is growing interest in launching a camp program in the Cape Town area. The work in Uganda continues to spread, reaching thousands of youth. In Movement, our program partner, offers camp programs throughout the year for over 300 orphaned youth. “I was the kind of person who always thought that I wasn’t loved and always thought I couldn’t do anything,” wrote one youth after an In Movement camp. “By the time I finished the camp I realized I can do something. I am someone of great value and I started speaking positive messages about myself.” The Creative Facilitation Team, a group of Ugandan youth workers we have worked with for the past three years have been implementing the Creative Community Model in their own organizations and providing training and camp facilitation for organizations throughout Uganda and beyond.

Hand Across the World US and Ugandan Teens Connect For two years, PYE Global associates Charles Terry and Betsy MacGregor have been working with the M-Lisada orphanage in Kampala. M-Lisada is an acronym for Music, Life Skills, and Destitution Alleviation, a name that well identifies their mission. The 150 children served by M-Lisada, make money through music and dance performances produced on their grounds and for organizations throughout Kampala. Their motto is “Music to the Rescue” and this has certainly been true. In March Charles and Betsy visited Bayview Community School on Whidbey Island to suggest a collaboration between M-Lisada and Bayview. "The longer we talked about the project, the more excited the students became," reports Charles. "By the time we left for Uganda a month later, they had painted a mural representing culture in the Pacific Northwest, made dozens of friendship bracelets, produced a video about their school, and purchased a trumpet and trombone for the M-Lisada band. "The gifts were warmly received by the M-Lisada youth who made a video message in return." The project is in its infancy," says Betsy, "but what is already evident is that the youth from both communities yearn to connect with others across the world.” When the Bayview youth were asked who wanted to continue with the project, every hand went up. “Bayview and M-Lisada already call each other brothers and sisters,” added Charles. See the video...