Turn around Project of the Arts targets Hamilton

Letʼs face it. Lots of people want to change the world. Turn things around.

Mother Teresa did it in the streets of Calcutta. Bob Geldof gave it a shot with “Live Aid.” Take a walk down Sanford Avenue North in Hamilton, and youʼll find a grassroots group trying to turn things around for kids. No surprise, it's known as “Turn around* Project of the Arts.”

Called “TAP” for short, volunteers stage free arts workshops for kids: theatre, music, creative writing, photography, sound engineering. Hamilton is its headquarters, but TAP reaches out to young people all over the world.

“The reality is, the arts speak every language,” says Executive Director Tiffany Stull. “Regardless of your upbringing or where you live, the arts connect us all.”

The group was actually born a few miles down the QEW at Brock University, where renowned Dub poet Michael St. George was teaching a class on Jamaican theatre and culture in 2006. His enthusiasm was infectious.

So much so, that in the summer of 2007, some of his students decided to hop on a plane and bring an arts workshop to Jamaica. More than 100 Jamaican kids, aged 7 to 18, took part in the pilot project.

Tiffany Stull was on that first trip.

“Everyone has a big life experience where, after that, nothing is the same,” she says. “After that experience in Jamaica, my entire life changed.”

There have been two more trips to Jamaica since then. More than 75 people from all walks of life have volunteered with TAP. Hamilton’s Katherine Fleitas is one of them.

“My boyfriend is a musician and I met Michael St. George through him,” says the photographer and artist. “I’ve worked in other community programs for years and I found that his message … what he believes in, really spoke to the things I believe in.”

She loves how many creative, interesting people are involved with TAP.

“It’s a cool program with good people,” she adds.

TAP expanded to Japan in 2008. There are plans to branch out to India, Cameroon and Panama this year and next. They staged a summer arts camp in Niagara last year, and they also partnered with a United Way agency in Toronto for a summer exchange program.

Hamilton was initially chosen as a midway point between St. Catharines and Toronto for meetings, but Steeltown became something more than a convenient hub where the group set up its permanent headquarters. Volunteers began making connections with local organizations like Arts Hamilton, The Pearl Company, the Afro Caribbean Canadian Association, the Hamilton Centre for Teaching Peace, and CityKidz.

But still, no workshops here. The problem? Money. The first two trips to Jamaica and Japan received government funding. Since then, the group has survived on private donations and fundraisers. A grant writer is now on board, and charitable registration is in the works. Ultimately, the plan is to become a strong presence in Hamilton.

Stull is confident a local program will be up and running sometime this year.

“We have a lot of seeds planted in a lot of different places,” she says.

* CORRECTIONJan.27, 2011Turn Around Project of the Arts was previously spelled as Turnaround Project for the Arts. We regret the error.