Breaking Walls exists to bring arts education and leadership skill-building to diverse communities of young people across the globe. Through its innovative programming and skilled artistic mentors, young participants utilize creative activism and peacemaking models to produce original pieces of literary, visual, and vocal art, instrumental music, dance, and ensemble performances. Breaking Walls ultimately seeks to create a diverse, equitable, inclusive, empathetic, and justice-oriented global community by bringing together young people through its art and activism programming.

Organization History:
Breaking Walls is the outgrowth of an arts, social justice, and universal acceptance project spearheaded by Fran Tarr in 2008 when she took a group of disadvantaged young people (ages 16 to 18) from Brooklyn, NY to meet with their counterparts (ages 14 to 17) in Bethlehem, Palestine. These young people recognized that through their individual literary art and ensemble performance collaboration they were able to connect and build mutual respect and understanding. By letting down their walls and listening to one another without bias, they effectively built a bridge between their polarized life experiences. As part of this reflection, they wanted to continue reaching all young people of every race, religion, and country of origin – inspiring the formalized creation of Breaking Walls as a nonprofit organization in 2011.

Since its inception in Brooklyn and Bethlehem, Breaking Walls continues to serve young people who struggle with social unrest, intolerance, and peer pressure. We have evolved into a cohesive international youth empowerment through the arts movement, having held In-school Arts Education Workshops, Virtual Artist Cooperatives, Community-Based Initiatives, and annual International Summits with young people in 13 communities across Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America.