Hands for a Bridge was honored to host a day of education, laughter and learning on October 22 by hosting the play Sonny Sixkiller Buys the Washington Redskins.

This exciting live production by Native American playwright, Darrell Hillaire, was shown last year to an enthusiastic audience at the Moore Theatre and joined us again to Seattle onstage at Roosevelt High School!  The large cast includes tribal youth, elders and others from the Lummi Tribe.

The play was staged throughout the school day for students of Roosevelt High School, and again that evening for the community at large. Over 300 members of the community came to the evening production to explore the controversy surrounding the NFL’s Washington Redskins’ mascot and its impacts on Native Americans and all people. After each production of the play, the cast and crew hosted a dialogue session with the audience.

Hands for a Bridge (HFB) is an innovative and immersive program designed to educate and empower students to build a more connected, informed and just world.

The program is run through a unique partnership with Roosevelt High School in Seattle, Washington. Students must apply to participate in the intensive year-long academic and extra-curricular program. Teachers and volunteers lead the students through a year-long language arts class, along with weekly after-school meetings, and a bilateral international exchange program.

Using the arts as a lens, students learn to examine and discuss social justice issues that impact their own identities, their communities, and our globally-connected world. They are challenged to apply these lessons in a variety of settings, culminating in an Activism Project. Students design and complete a solution in their own community, using the lessons, perspectives, and tools they have gained throughout the program.

HFB students emerge as transformed global citizens with vision and resources to effect vital change in our world. Our program strengthens students’ engagement in our own community and the world, as well as their leadership skills. They frequently go on to study and work in related disciplines: international affairs, social work, teaching,

Hands For a Bridge is:

• A High School Arts Curriculum
• International Exchange
• Local Leadership and Activism

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Hands for a Bridge includes a bilateral exchange program, allowing students to travel across the world to develop a global dialog about peace and justice.

Every February a class of students from Roosevelt High School in Seattle split up and travel to Northern Ireland and South Africa – two regions where a long history of conflict has formed deep divisions in their communities. This exchange is a coalescing event in the host country, providing an opportunity for students from opposite sides of post-conflict zones to come together and share how these divisions have shaped their experiences and identities. The Seattle students participate alongside their hosts in an arts-based dialog building immersion.

Each Fall, students from both regions travel to Seattle to continue the exchange. With an expanded global perspective, students are better able to examine injustice in their own community and have tools and resources to create change.

Poetry, song, dance, film, literature, and many other art forms are central to the HFB curriculum. Students participate in the curriculum through a daily language arts class at Roosevelt High School in Seattle, along with weekly after-school meetings.

The arts are used both as a lens for examining social justice issues as well as a starting point in a dialog about difficult issues. Race, culture, religion, and privilege are hard to talk about – especially when people from opposing sides are engaging in the dialog. Art is a powerful tool for unity. Oftentimes coming together in song or dance can establish a human bond that allows students to later address those harder issues in conversation.

Throughout the school year in Seattle, students complete Activist Projects to explore an aspect of their own community that needs greater understanding and social change. They propose their Activist Projects based on the skills and resources they have developed through the classroom curriculum and exchange program.  By completing their projects, they emerge as leaders , equipped to

Seattle struggles with division in our neighborhoods and schools and students are charged with examining and acting on these divisions with the lens they have developed through exchange and learning. These local projects help our students build bridges of communication and understanding that our city benefits from. In past years, student projects have inspired connections with English Language Learners in their own school, students across the city in other high schools, and Native American student groups on local reservations.