MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION AND COUNSELING THROUGH THE ARTS
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Mission Statement
MECA is a community-based non-profit organization committed to the healthy development of under-served & under represented families through arts and cultural programming, academic excellence, support services, and community building.
About This Cause
Throughout the year, families from Metro Houston visit the MECA campus to experience its rich arts education programs that take place after-school and in the summer; social and academic support services offered to students’ families free of charge; annual performance and exhibit series; and cultural programs and festivals. MECA delivers arts education through its three innovative programs: In-School, After-School, and the Sunburst Arts Summer Camp. Through the In-School Arts Program, MECA collaborates with local schools to provide arts education outside of and/or not offered in their regular curriculum. The program is designed to target students whose schools provide few to no arts resources, and the classes are developed in alignment with Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) curriculum and tailored to each school’s area of need. MECA’s After-School Arts Program takes place on MECA’s campus, which gives Houston’s underserved youth a safe place to go once their school day has ended. Through the program, students may participate in year-round art classes that culminate in recitals and exhibitions, which take place during the spring and at the end of the school year in May. Additionally, if students wish to pursue more intensive training, they can participate in master classes or attend workshops with professional guest artists through our Residency/Performance Series (described below). MECA’s Sunburst Arts Summer Camp is a comprehensive 8-week course that gives students a full day of arts education and activities to address the learning loss that typically occurs during summer months. The program includes a wide range of arts and academic enrichment activities, including cultural and classical performing arts, mosaic and visual art, creative writing, STEM lab classes, as well as field trips to sites across Houston. Additional support and outreach are offered free of charge through our Support Services Department for students who participate in the arts education programs. Services typically include counseling and counseling referrals, mentoring, tutoring, crisis intervention, SAT prep courses and life skills training. In addition, MECA’s Education Coordinator works directly with students and in collaboration with High School counselors to help them pursue advanced degrees and assistance with filling out college and scholarship applications. College Readiness is an important part of MECA’s outreach, and is designed to help encourage students prepare for life beyond high school by integrating college readiness services with their aspirations to continue in the arts. MECA's innovative and groundbreaking Residency/Performance Series features professional-level performances and visual art exhibitions presented at the Dow School. By providing free or affordable performances, exhibitions, and workshops to our students and their families, this series predominantly serves and attracts communities where resources and cultural/artistic opportunities are limited. MECA's long commissioning history has included bringing the work of notable Latino artists, such as composer Elio Villafranca, playwright Tony Garcia, and performance artist José Torres Tama, to Houston audiences. Finally, MECA features a series of annual cultural events, including the Dia de los Muertos Festival and altar exhibition, the Fiestas Decembrinas (Fiesta Guadalupana and La Posada), and the Viva el Amor concert and Corazones exhibit. These regular programs offer to our constituents a platform to engage with and to share their cultural traditions with each other and with audiences visiting from across the city and state. MECA strives to meet the creative and social needs of at-risk youth and underserved communities who traditionally lack access to quality arts programs and services. Our staff and faculty are of these very communities and through their interactions with MECA’s clients, they are able to pass on the training and education that they have acquired throughout their careers. During its 45-year history, MECA has garnered many achievements, including recognition by the American Institute of Architects for its creation of the Old Sixth Ward Art Park at St. Joseph Church; recognition by former President George H.W. Bush as the 382nd Point of Light; and the designation of its Mariachi MECA by the National Endowment for the Arts as an Arts American Masterpieces Touring Artist in 2009. To date, MECA students have gone on to pursue higher education at institutions such as Julliard School of Music, Berklee College of Music, Dilliard University, Maryland School of the Arts, American Musical & Dramatic Academy, the New England Music Conservatory, University of Houston and University of Texas at Austin. Even those students who do not pursue a career in the arts have proceeded to establish successful careers as teachers, lawyers, authors, architects and engineers. MECA is unique among Houston’s social agencies because it combines the arts with communal support and offers these services to populations who are unlikely to have access to them through traditional networks. Our services range from giving communities a place to congregate and converge around high-quality art exploring social justice issues; giving organizations of color a home to create, collaborate and present art; and giving artists of color the opportunity to showcase their work and impact their communities. Involvement in the arts provides cognitive, social, cultural, academic and behavioral benefits for youth and adults alike. More specifically for students, the artistic process enables them to develop the personal characteristics attributed to high academic performance. This is because many arts disciplines engender skills transferrable to academic subjects such as math, language and the humanities; for example, the ability to sight-read music is proven to have a positive, causal impact on a child’s ability to read and understand language, and the self-discipline required to improve one’s practice in the arts is applicable to advanced academic study. Furthermore, arts education programs accompanied by social benefits, like those offered by MECA, serves as an equalizer against socioeconomic barriers. This is because each arm of MECA’s programming and each member of its staff is trained to facilitate academic success for their students; any potential barriers that students may face are collaboratively assessed by the Support Services Department with assistance from the student’s parents/family. What is more, by taking underserved youth off the streets and into our center to learn the arts, MECA’s programs provide the intervention necessary to disrupt and disengage the school-to-prison pipeline and poverty cycles plaguing Houston’s communities of color. MECA was created from a cultural vacuum to tackle the city’s systemic inequalities by interweaving its programming between the arts, education, and social service. For forty two years, MECA programs have successfully addressed these opportunity gaps faced to build stronger, more visible communities.