Resources

When field programs and organizations 

integrate EthnoArts into their planning and work, 

everyone  benefits.

Some applications of EthnoArts on the field need someone with specialized training, like an Arts Worker, Arts Specialist, or Arts Consultant. But there's much that can be done by other members of an organization, and items on this page can help you integrate EthnoArts into your context successfully. Please consult Where We Fit for more information on helping Arts Specialists thrive. 

Four Core EthnoArts Elements

Arts for a Better Future - www.ArtsForABetterFuture.org

Arts for a Better Future is a 5-day interactive EthnoArts seminar that will broaden your palette of tools for cross-cultural engagement with communication genres. You will leave with clear ideas of how to foster local, indigenous, kingdom-centered creativity in a community you care about. Brian Schrag’s book Creating Local Arts Together: A Manual to Help Communities Reach Their Kingdom Goals serves as the foundation for this event's highly participatory learning. 

        Area and organizational units can use ABF for two primary purposes:

• 1. Hold an ABF with language program teams and members of communities with projects. ABF connects particularly well with cluster projects.

  2. Hold an ABF for administrators at all levels so they can lead with a deeper, wider understanding of how God is using communication genres in their context. We can reduce this to 2 days to experience the core of ABF. Write Brian Schrag for more information.

Program Planning Tool for EthnoArts 

We know from long experience that communities can enhance the completion of their language and culture development goals by drawing on their arts. But how do you choose which EthnoArts activities are appropriate at a given moment in a program? And once you’ve decided on an activity, how do you make it happen? The Program Planning Tool for EthnoArts is meant to help three types of people answer these questions: Program planners, Arts personnel, and strategic planners and managers. Learn more at this link.

Initial Community Arts List

The first step in drawing on these resources is to know that they exist, so every program should complete an initial Community Arts List early on. Making a list of genre names and a brief description for each should take less than a day to complete. Anybody familiar with the community and basic cross-cultural communication can perform this task. Program and community members will add to the Community Arts List as needed to meet various goals throughout the life of the program.

 Learn more at this link - Community Arts List

Learn more at this link - Finding Local Communication Genres 

Community Arts Profile

Arts personnel gather and organize their research and activities in a Community Arts Profile. The CAP is organized around the seven Creating Local Arts Together steps.  Learn more at this link.

How to Integrate EthnoArts into a Comprehensive Project (or whatever strategic planning and funding system you use)

• Help all programs complete Initial Community Arts Lists . Cf. CLAT Manual, pp 3-9 

• Connect CP Outcomes to Creating Local Arts Together (CLAT) Signs of the Kingdom. Cf. CLAT Manual, pp 23-52

• Formulate arts-related activities that will help the community move toward the Signs of the Kingdom. Cf. CLAT Manual, pp 191-240

 Here are a few sample relationships between desired program outcomes and CLAT Goals:

Where there is no Arts Specialist:

• Send someone on your team for training in SIL’s EthnoArts approach:

  • Arts for a Better Future (ABF) seminar. Four to five days. Most immediately productive for someone who has program experience, and for spreading vision with partners. It’s possible to arrange an ABF in various locations. 

  • Individual classes at Payap, DIU. 

• Request one or more Arts Specialists to join you.

• Request consultant help from the Area domain leader who will 1) either source regional Arts Specialists or Arts Consultants, or 2) interact online in a consultant capacity.

How to Integrate EthnoArts Services into an Entity/Organizational Unit:

• Invite regional or international arts personnel to lead an "EthnoArts in Scripture Engagement and Language Development" meeting with entity/organizational unit leaders.

• Find or develop someone in your OU with expertise in the Creating Local Arts Together (CLAT) appreciative inquiry approach. He may be an Arts Specialist or Arts Worker, or someone with a primary role in Scripture Engagement, media, anthropology, community development, or other domain.

• Include EthnoArts in entity and language program planning sessions.

• Have all language programs create an Initial Community Arts Survey.

How to Integrate an Arts Specialist into an Entity/Organizational Unit:

For more on these topics, visit this page.

Anchoring Internship: The Arts Specialist spends 1-3 years in a language community to develop lasting relationships, skills, and knowledge.

• The welcoming organization provides someone local to mentor the Arts Specialist relationally and practically into the language community.

•  Area EthnoArts leadership provides someone to mentor the Arts Specialist in his/her professional work. This will likely be mostly from a distance.

Wider Contribution: After the internship, the AS applies his/her skills to other language programs and entity goals.

• Program supervisors meet with the Arts Specialist to explore his/her general and specialty skills.

• Program supervisors connect the Arts Specialist to language programs with goals that need his/her skills.

How to Integrate an Arts Specialist and his/her Competencies into a Language Program

This assumes that program leaders have developed goals with their community that can be furthered by an Arts Specialist.

• Complete an Initial Community Arts Survey. Cf. CLAT Manual, pp 3-9

• Connect program Outcomes to CLAT Signs of the Kingdom. Cf. CLAT Manual, pp 23-52 and Program Planning Tool for EthnoArts

How to request an Arts Specialist

• Send a request to Open Positions lists, and please email arts@sil.org. Allocations usually include dialogue with Area domain leaders.