Our mission
Heritage Works promotes youth and community development through cultural traditions, arts and education. Our programs encourage personal, artistic and community excellence by promoting cultural understanding, skill and tool development, and cultural fluency.
What we stand for..
- We believe that cultural arts and traditions provide rich resources for developing artistic and critical thinking skills, broadening perspectives and promoting cross-cultural understanding.
- We believe youth development is comprehensive, involves the entire family, and is essential to meeting the educational, economic, and social needs of communities.
- We believe that human performance is enhanced by environments that appreciate and encourage diversity and communities that encourage each of us to understand and take pride in ourselves, our backgrounds, and our communities.
- We believe traditions are essential to empowering people; that empowering individuals enables them to reach their highest mental, emotional, spiritual and physical potentials; and provides an opportunity to create vibrant communities that promote a sense of worth, respect, understand and responsibility in its residents.
History
Heritage Works was founded in December of 2000 as African Dance Works. From the start we worked to preserve and showcase the African heritage, and illuminate relationships between American and African traditions. Our original focus was primarily dance and related art forms. We've since expanded our focus, and taken the name Heritage Works. With our new name comes a wider scope of cultural programming, which includes the traditions and the arts of Africa and the Diaspora.
