Norwalk’s Creative Connections gets grant for high-school arts-exchange program with Nepal

Creative Connections and a Nepalese theater have received a $60,000 grant from the U.S. Department of State to run a new, arts-based cultural heritage preservation program between students in Nepal and the U.S.

Thirty high school students from the Mandala Theatre in Kathmandu, Nepal, and the Regional Center for the Arts in Trumbull will engage in Creative Connections”™ newest program, “Heritage Preservation: A Creative Approach,” which utilizes the arts to enable participants to better understand their own and others”™ cultures.

Through the use of art, dance, music and theater techniques, students will explore ”“ virtually and in-person ”“ how inter-generational and societal tensions can be addressed through a better understanding and appreciation of cultural differences and common values.

Participants will also put together and facilitate one-day workshop residences at four local schools in both countries, encouraging local students to carry on the work of heritage preservation in their own lives.

Norwalk-based Creative Connections will join four other organizations as part of the Communities Connecting Heritage program, sponsored by the State Department with funding provided by the U.S. government and administered by World Learning.