Moody Grant Recipient: NIA Cultural Center

Photo Courtesy Galveston Daily News 1. Can you tell us more about the Freedom School program and why it is essential? In 2007, Nia Cultural Center established its Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) Freedom School addressing the urgent need to curb summer learning loss and close achievement gaps for Galveston ISD’s African-American students. Freedom Schools® is a proven evidence-based approach for summer and after-school enrichment through a research-based and multicultural curriculum that supports children and families through five essential components: high quality academic and character-building enrichment; parent and family involvement; civic engagement and social action; intergenerational servant leadership development; and nutrition, health, and mental health. CDF Freedom Schools foster environments that support children and young adults to excel and believe in their abilities to make a difference in themselves and their families, communities, nation, and world with hope, education, and action. This program is mission-critical for youth living in Galveston’s underserved

Photo Courtesy Galveston Daily News

1. Can you tell us more about the Freedom School program and why it is essential?

In 2007, Nia Cultural Center established its Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) Freedom School addressing the urgent need to curb summer learning loss and close achievement gaps for Galveston ISD’s African-American students.

Freedom Schools® is a proven evidence-based approach for summer and after-school enrichment through a research-based and multicultural curriculum that supports children and families through five essential components:

• high quality academic and character-building enrichment;
• parent and family involvement;
• civic engagement and social action;
• intergenerational servant leadership development; and
• nutrition, health, and mental health.

CDF Freedom Schools foster environments that support children and young adults to excel and believe in their abilities to make a difference in themselves and their families, communities, nation, and world with hope, education, and action. This program is mission-critical for youth living in Galveston’s underserved neighborhoods.

You can find CDF Freedom Schools in Texas at eight different sites across five Texas cities: Houston, Austin, Fort Worth, and Galveston serving more than 500 scholars.

Nia Cultural Center CDF Freedom School operates in Galveston serving over 100 youth annually.

2. Tell us more about your relationship with the Moody Foundation.

Moody Foundation is among the largest sources of private support for Nia Cultural Center’s CDF Freedom School as their vision is to build a bigger, better future for all Texans. Nia and Moody share core values around education and opportunity as central to upward mobility for all residents. Together, they know that curbing summer learning loss and closing achievement gaps for minority students in Galveston ISD is one of our region’s highest needs.

The Moody Foundation professional staff has guided ways to leverage resources through a more robust partnership with school district leaders. Nia is proud of its access to in-kind program space and meals at GISD’s Alamo Elementary during the summer months. Nia’s CDF Freedom School can serve more children by focusing its other charitable donations in ways that maximize community benefit.

3. What is the origin of the Freedom School Program and how has it evolved?

The Freedom School Program is rooted in the Mississippi Freedom Summer project of 1964 when college interns from all over the United States set up schools, sometimes in the open air, to teach Black adults and their children reading and other subjects to develop capability and commitment to exercising the right to vote and make a difference in their community, state, nation, and world. As implemented today, Freedom Schools also are grounded in research demonstrating that low-income children make gains in learning during the school year at approximately the same rate as their higher-income peers, but during summer children in low-income families in marginalized neighborhoods experience a loss of ready access to books, adult-supervised visits to museums, and other learning experiences that their higher-income peers enjoy. Therefore, they begin the next school year with an achievement gap; the gap widens each subsequent new school year traceable to summer learning loss.

Children’s Defense Fund, Nia’s strategic partner, opened the first two CDF Freedom Schools sites in 1995 to address the needs of children who lacked access to high-quality literacy programs during the summer. CDF Freedom Schools today are designed to improve reading, language skills, and interpersonal relationships; strengthen families, connect children to medical and other needed social services, and develop in all participants the skills needed to improve conditions for children and families in their communities.

Since 1995, more than 162,000 children (Pre-K–12) in the US have had the Freedom School experience, and more than 18,000 young adults and child advocates have been trained on the delivery of the CDF Freedom Schools model. Galveston has served over 1,600 children and 220 interns since 2007.

4. How are you celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Freedom School Program?

Children’s Defense Fund celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Nia Culture Center proudly salutes them for their achievements in powering the movement that cares for and gives hope to the nation’s most vulnerable youth.

5. How do you hope NIA Cultural Center and its programs will grow in the next several years?

Nia Cultural Center’s programs including its CDF Freedom School are transforming the lives of children in Galveston, Texas. Heightened community demand has sparked Nia’s aspiration to scale its program to serve more youth in multiple service sites. Nia also wants to extend its summer program by creating more year-round initiatives during after-school hours, especially leadership opportunities for high school scholars.

6. Upcoming Events through Communities in Schools Austin Chapter:

The upcoming event is the Freedom School Finale, July 25th at 6 PM at Ball High School, 4100 Ave. O in Galveston.  Scholars will showcase what they have learned at Freedom School and share how they plan to make a difference in themselves, their families, their country, and their world with hope, education, and action.