INDIGENOUS EDUCATION
Reinforcing our Community
ARTIST TRAINING PROGRAM
Culture in our classroom
TRAUMA HEALING
Healing Our Community
MOS CHUKMA
ARTS AS HEALING PROGRAM
"We heal ourselves, We heal the world"
We, the Mos Chukma Institute, have been implementing an indigenous healing art program in partnership with Dr. Martin Luther King Charter School for Science at Technology in New Orleans. Working closely with the teachers, students and administration, we have developed an arts program that allows our students to connect with their culture, community, and personal inner resilience. Integrating Native/African teaching stories, correlated with indigenous science and local culture and ecosystems, Mos Chukma Institute takes a holistic approach towards teaching and learning. As our students develop self-confidence through our artistic activities, they also develop meaningful connections to community, family and the healthy development of their emerging
W E AR E D E S I G N E D
T O H E AL
Connecting ourselves to the natural world brings order and containment allowing our students to feel safe and in present time. Our Reframing of trauma uses various techniques: EMDR, EFT, and our Indigenous Art Therapy. When we are released from our past traumas we are free to create our present from our future.
All time is now.
Amerlie Prescott, Mos Chukma Founder / Director
Trauma healing is a sophisticated art. I have been fortunate enough to study with healing elders from both Buddhist and First Nations traditions. These deeply spiritual modalities in combination with Western practice of EMDR, have proven ideal for alleviating traumatic wounds ranging from recurring suffering to total transformation occurring in an instant.
Amerlie Prescott, Mos Chukma Founder / Director
Mos Chukma Institute
THE TRAINING PROGRAM
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Mos Chukma is committed to broadening our scope and reach by providing an Arts as Healing Institute to train artists, local community members and Opportunity Youth (New Orleans young men, 16 to 25 years old) as well as returning war veterans, to provide youth in our partner schools with relief from trauma, through a variety of art-centered activities.
We are committed to sharing our trauma informed expertise and tools to reconstruct services for youth.
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This emotion-driven healing arts program was specifically designed to reframe trauma, process negative emotions and increase resilience through the regular practice of particular activities designed to address PTSD of Katrina as well as the genocide of slavery.
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There are an estimated 10,000 youth diagnosed with trauma in New Orleans, while countless more go undiagnosed. Untreated trauma manifests itself in youth in a variety of ways, including: uncontrollable emotional outbursts, emotional and developmental paralysis or disassociation, self-destructive behavior, depression, violent tendencies, apathy, irrational decisions, and/or an overwhelming hopelessness.
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Our unique holistic Arts-As-Healing Program has been developed with the care and expertise of an arts and science educators, with over thirty years of experience, working specifically with at-risk and traumatized youth, as well as in collaboration with a team of specialists in this area. After three years of working with over four hundred students a week at the Dr. Martin Luther King Charter School for Science and Technology in the Lower Ninth Ward, we expanded our reach this school year to work with youth at the Joseph A. Craig Charter School in the Treme neighborhood. There is a wealth of testimony from teachers, administrators, and students alike, attesting to the effectiveness of our work, with some teachers testifying that our Arts-as-Healing program is the most important work that a student will undertake in the course of a school year.
Our Arts-As-Healing Institute is a hosting an internship program in partnership with collaborating schools, community organizations and members. Interns will receive direct instruction, mentoring, on-site student teaching and certification, and ultimately, be qualified to serve as Mos Chukma Art Teachers, disseminating our unique approach and curative art activities while broadening Mos Chukma’s ability to reach as many students as possible. The internship will begin with a week-long intensive training to be held at the New Orleans Healing Center, a sanctuary and model for urban and community healing.
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​Mos Chukma’s Arts-As-Healing Institute training model is grounded in the principles of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), Buddhist and First Nations spiritual healing traditions. EMDR, a psychotherapeutic approach developed by Francine Shapiro, is one of the most widely accepted treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder, and is the therapeutic choice of veterans. Our training curriculum will provide a comprehensive overview of the concepts and protocols of EMDR, meditation, meditative techniques and practices, child development, facilitator training, curriculum development, and media literacy.
Our Institute training curriculum covers the following concepts:
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Collaborative Teaching
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Self-Care
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Installing Habits of Learning Readiness
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Story-telling, the Natural World and
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Development of Emotional Intelligence
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Camera-as-Witness and Youth Presentations
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Virtues of Various Art Mediums as Aligned with Trauma Relief
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Advanced Specifics of Trauma Relief
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Lesson Planning and Culminating Project Design
Mos Chukma Arts as Healing Institute ©2021
