Mission

Breaking Walls exists to bring multidisciplinary arts and peacemaking skills to diverse intercultural communities of young artists, starting in the United States and reaching across the globe. Through innovative programming and skilled artistic mentors, young artists use creative activism and peacemaking models to produce original pieces of literary, visual, and vocal art, instrumental music, dance, and ensemble performances. Breaking Walls seeks to create a global community that is creative, diverse, equitable, inclusive, and justice-oriented. Since its inception, Breaking Walls has continually sought underserved young artists who face social unrest, intolerance, and peer pressure. By bringing young people together through its arts programming, Breaking Walls connects them from different cultures who discover similarities and shared goals despite religious, cultural, or geographical differences.

Organization History:

Breaking Walls is the outgrowth of an arts, social justice, and universal acceptance project spearheaded by Fran Tarr in 2008, when she brought a group of disadvantaged young people (ages 16 to 18) from Brooklyn, NY, to meet 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.