by Susan Griffith

Three Case Western Reserve University anthropologists are joining forces with a Cleveland elementary school-and using art as a weapon-to help wage war against domestic violence.

photo by Rodney L. Brown Students in the Victory Over Violence program at Rozelle Elementary School in East Cleveland display their artwork

As members of the Huron Road Hospital-East Cleveland Community Coalition against Violence, Rachel Chapman, Case assistant professor, and graduate students Michelle Nebergall and Maggie Zraly have helped to develop a domestic violence awareness program for adults that has evolved into a yearlong art program for East Cleveland sixth-graders.

Called Victory Over Violence, the program began as a series of education activities in which Chapman helped train community members to be advocates for victims of domestic violence. But Chapman said the coalition quickly realized violence prevention needed to start with young children, many of whom already have witnessed serious violence in their homes.

The coalition connected with Lettie Webster, assistant principal at East Cleveland's Rozelle Elementary School, who already had been implementing the Victory over Violence Program, which has origins in a Buddhist international children's peace effort. Rozelle students from the kindergarten through the sixth grade weekly made a Victory over Violence pledge together through the school's public address system.

With extension funds to the Ohio Campus Compact grant awarded to Case for awareness training, the program expanded into art classes taught by Stephanie Miller-Davis as a pilot project.

One of the most visible results of the violence awareness program is a new community mural created by the children and visiting artists to Rozelle at the entrance to the Community Health Center at Huron Road Hospital. Peace messages in the form of paintings also adorn Victory Over Violence peace badges, posters in East Cleveland's City Hall and throughout the community and computer screen savers and t-shirts, the sale of which will help raise additional funds to support future peace efforts. Eventually the coalition plans to have children produce a video.

The coalition will continue working with the sixth-graders at Rozelle and plans to expand the efforts to church groups through the Victory Over Violence program called Teens Make Peace. This program will train youth mentors in church groups to use painting, photography, dance and the spoken word as tools to combat violence.

Return to the online edition of the 8-21-03 Campus News.

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