Arts + Parks

This time on Peace Talks Radio, we explore a program that transforms troubled neighborhoods into more peaceful, secure places through art, learning, land transformation and economic development. Host Carol Boss speaks with Lily Yeh, co-founder of two organizations dedicated to re-building communities: The Village of Arts and Humanities, Inc. and, more recently, Barefoot Artists, Inc. In North Philadelphia, Yeh, with a group of neighborhood residents (mostly children), cleared a trash-strewn vacant lot and began to build an art park that incorporated mosaic sculptures, murals, and landscaping with trees and flowers. Over the next few years, Yeh's project was joined by artists, builders, educators and a growing number of community residents caught up in the vision of creating a more peaceful community. Yeh's ideas that helped bring the North Philadelphia neighborhood back to life are now being applied to projects in Rwanda, Kenya, Ecuador and China.