RESPECT: Embrace your community

  • The final design incorporates the Pio Mendez Houses and one of the participants, embracing the community.
  • Using NYC Department of Transportation's Safety Sign education program, seniors sketched and collaged images that represented safe streets to them.
  • Through the use of images brought in by Groundswell's Lead Artist, drawings were generated reflecting ideas about cleaner, safer neighborhood.
  • Students and seniors “trade” drawings and add to each others using color, tracing and text.
  • The seniors enjoyed working on a project where all of their ideas were represented in the final design.
Groundswell Community Mural ProjectStreetwise: Hunts Point

Project Description

This safety sign project was the third in a series of five projects in the StreetWise: Hunts Point initiative. Funded by The Rockefeller Foundation and its Cultural Innovation Fund, and in partnership with NYC Department of Transportation, this two-year campaign uses a series of community mural-making projects to engage community members in identifying and prioritizing transportation and related-environmental concerns in their South Bronx community.
 
For "RESPECT: Embrace your community," seniors from the Pio Mendez Center in Hunts Point worked with students from the nearby MS 424. The seniors engaged in a five session project in which Groundswell artist Frank Parga and NYC Department of Transportation Safety Educator Maria Cruz facilitated a collaborative exploration of what constitutes a safer, cleaner neighborhood. The dynamic and powerful interaction led to discussions with MS 424's Principal about arranging regular visits of the students to the Pio Mendez Houses, opening up the potential for a longer-lasting dialogue between the two groups.
 

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Project Info

Location: 1291 Lafayette Avenue Bronx, NY 10474

Fun Facts

Research
From Latin respectus ("respect, regard"), perfect passive participle of respiciō ("look at, look back upon, respect"), from re- ("back") + speciō ("look at").
Fun Fact
Only 5% of people over 65 years old are in nursing homes. Elderly men are likely to live with a spouse while elderly women are more likely to live alone.
Research
In 1968, the New York City Department for the Aging was established as the Mayor’s Office for the Aging and funded by Older Americans Act as a three-year demonstration project.