Dandelion School is located on the outskirts of Beijing in a heavily polluted, under-developed and high crime area. It serves the educational needs of five hundred and twenty students from families of migrant workers. Barefoot Artists has worked with the school since its founding 18 years ago. During that time the school has received nationwide recognition in China for their innovative curriculum, art has become central to their identity.

the Rwanda Healing Project, which contains two simultaneous and complimentary programs: 1) the construction of the Rugerero Genocide Memorial and, 2) the transformation of the Rugerero Survivors’ Village. The Genocide Memorial program looks at the past: violence, destruction, and death; the Survivors’ Village program deals with now and the future: development, new possibilities, and hope.

Since 2011 Barefoot Artists has completed 3 projects in the West Bank: Balata Refugee Camp, Al Aqaba Village and Nablus. We are grateful to Majdi Shella, our program coordinator. His knowledge, dedication, and social network made all these projects possible.

Mei Hwa (Beautiful Flower) Elementary School (美華國小) is located in a remote, rural area in Daxi, Taiwan. Most its students are from poor, indigenous, skip-generation and new immigrant families. In response to dwindling energy at the school, and a three-year drop in student population from 108 students to 43, the school invited Lily Yeh to lead a revitalization project through art.

Situated next to a huge city dump, Korogocho is a settlement of 100,000 people just outside of Nairobi, Kenya. The thousands of children and adults who visit the dump site daily to scratch out a living by recycling trash are refered to as Mukuru people, which is Swahili for “garbage.” As a Lila Wallace Arts International Fellow, Lily Yeh conducted a three month residency in Korogocho beginning in January of 1994.

Before there was Barefoot Artists there was the Village of Arts and Humanties in North Philadelphia. What began as a modest park building project by Lily Yeh in 1986 went on to become an internationally recognized model for community building through the arts. The Village continues to thrive today under new leadership. Here, we cover the period of time from that first park building project through Lily’s tenure as Executive Director, 1986 – 2004.