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AFH’s central program, the Arts Micro-Enterprise, is a paid apprenticeship and leadership program employing inner-city teens.  The youth are partnered in small groups with professional artists, designers and young artist mentors to design, create, market and sell art products. With fully equipped, staffed studios in Painting/Murals, Sculpture/Industrial Design, Screen-Printing, Graphic Design, Digital Media, Photography/Web Design and Fashion Beyond Design, youth and mentors collaborate on creative projects, many specifically commissioned by clients. In the process, young artists develop entrepreneurial skills as they participate in planning, product development, outreach and marketing of projects.

In 1990, Susan Rodgerson – artist, teacher, and entrepreneur – felt the need to address the lack of arts experiences within the Boston Public School system.  Her vision was to inspire a group of 13 to 14 year olds at an inner-city middle school to engage in the creative process through visual arts.  The intent was to communicate their experiences to the larger world, thereby empowering them and educating their community.  She found young people hungry for opportunities to have a voice in the world. Together with six talented and dedicated young people, inspired by this venture and driven both to succeed and to offer the opportunity to others, these collaborations continued and they co-founded Artists For Humanity.  AFH began as an entrepreneurial venture that produced and marketed large-scale collaborative paintings reflecting the voice and vision of the rich cultural diversity of urban communities to Boston’s business community. 

Today, AFH remains a haven for teens from every corner of the city, a place where they can explore and express their creative abilities, identify possibilities for continuing education, and most importantly, dispel the myth that the larger world is forever closed to them. AFH develops young people as leaders in social change.

In addition to the Arts Micro-enterprise, AFH offers tours to community groups, including artistic and environmental education tours of our facility, the AFH EpiCenter, which has been voted the ‘greenest’ building in Boston. We also offer: specific art workshops for community groups throughout the year; a Saturday arts introduction/exploration program for middle school students; a school-time job training incubator for out-of-school young people;  summer-time after hours programming to provide a safe and inspiring place for youth to gather; and educational guidance, tutoring, and college readiness/career prep workshops for apprentices in the Arts Micro-enterprise.

Artists For Humanity’s mission is to provide inner-city youth with the keys to self-sufficiency through paid employment in the arts. It is built on the philosophy that exposure to the arts is a powerful force for social change, and creative entrepreneurship through the arts is a productive and life-changing opportunity for young people. Bridging economic, racial, and social divisions, AFH works to restore urban neighborhoods by introducing young people’s creativity to the business community.

At the heart of Artists For Humanity is the belief that acquiring a strong skill set is equivalent to attaining power and opportunity. We have three goals, which provide underserved youth with access to the things they need most:

1. A safe meaningful place where they are respected for their contributions,

2. An opportunity to have a voice through exhibitions, commercial services, and presentations,

3. Respect and responsibility of paid employment promoting financial awareness and self esteem.

Artists For Humanity compliments the work of many youth arts organizations, but what sets us apart is our micro-enterprise structure. AFH is based on a business model; we successfully offer excellent fine art and design services at competitive prices. More importantly, AFH is a social enterprise and our real business is providing meaningful job training opportunities to low-income youth combined with access to artistic growth and cultural experiences. It is for this component that AFH seeks your support.

By immersing young people in creative entrepreneurship, AFH puts them in positions of empowered autonomy – with their peers and with adults. This experience enables them to envision unlimited possibilities. Stereotypes and socio-economic barriers can be acknowledged and challenged in art making, and the process can facilitate overcoming these barriers in life. It is up to each youth to tap into his or her potential and forge a creative future.

Fabiola came into AFH as a quiet, shy young woman. However, her passion for the arts was evident in her bubbly personality and her drive to follow through on her ideas to create vibrant paintings. This fall, due to the incredible work ethic she exhibited during our summer program, and her willingness and desire to grow as an artist, we selected her to be a youth representative for AFH at a presentation in Maine. During the drive up, Fabiola expressed her nervousness and kept reiterating that she didn’t feel prepared. Nonetheless, she pulled herself together, and represented our organization very well. Afterwards, Fabiola couldn’t stop talking about how she now wanted to speak at future events. A connection occurred in Fabiola’s mind–she hadn’t realized she could be a public speaker, we recognized her potential and gave her the opportunity, and now the fire of speaking to large audiences was ignited! A month later, Fabiola was chosen by her school to represent them in North Carolina. Fabiola continues to be a growing presence, both as an artist and as a youth leader in our organization.

Tabby is the most quiet, unassuming person you will ever meet. Unlike her more outgoing peers, she allows her paintings to speak for her. At AFH you can find Tabby furiously focused, lip-pursed, eyebrows wrinkled in concentration to perfect her current painting. Tabby’s interest in creating intimate portraits made her the perfect candidate to be a part of our youth caricature artist team for the Blooming Art 2008 event. At the event, Tabby met a young boy who told her his peers at school bullied him for liking art. Tabby spoke to the young boy at length about how art plays a powerful role in her life. Somehow, through the magic of their interaction, mediated by the portrait drawing session,Tabby connected with the boy as no one had before, and encouraged him to continue engaging in creative endeavors. Two weeks after Blooming Art, we got a call from the boy’s parents, saying that he had been transformed. All of a sudden, he was engaged in his school and in art. His outlook was completely different. The boy’s newfound attitude heartened his parents. When told of the influence she had on this young boy, Tabby’s face lit up in a rare smile that stayed with her for the rest of the day. She had no idea that her little conversation with the boy could have such a profound effect.