BRIDGING EDUCATION AND ART TOGETHER

A 501(c)3 nonprofit located in New York City, Bridging Education and Art Together (BEAT) champions Hip Hop as a dynamic tool in improving physical and mental wellbeing. Through their dynamic programs with youth, under-resourced communities, and people with disabilities, BEAT envisions a world where Hip Hop is embraced as an integral tool in educational, clinical, and therapeutic settings to unlock the proven benefits of creative self-expression.

In the service of the Hip Hop principle “Each One, Teach One” -- BEAT’s original mission was to preserve authentic Hip Hop culture and to teach young people how to leverage Hip Hop to give them the tools to better advocate for themselves and their needs.

After a decade of programming in public schools, libraries, therapeutic settings, hospitals, and even refugee camps, BEAT’s instructors began to realize the utility of Hip Hop went beyond self-advocacy. They watched as participants flourished—especially people with disabilities and youth in under-resourced communities. They saw Hip Hop as an effective pedagogical and therapeutic approach for improving health and wellness outcomes in the communities BEAT served.

While this was an unintended consequence, BEAT decided to follow the evidence and ask why were participants seeing such incredible benefits from Hip Hop?

In 2020, BEAT began partnering with clinical researchers to investigate what about beatboxing led to better speech development in young people with speech and communication difficulties. Since that time, BEAT has developed additional partnerships with researchers to investigate other realms of Hip Hop and its impact on health and wellness. Through this research, BEAT seeks to optimize the power of Hip Hop as a pathway to improving health and healing.

In 2020, BEAT began seeking accreditations to provide continuing education courses to teach professionals how to leverage Hip Hop’s proven benefits in clinical and therapeutic settings. The goal of these programs is to teach clinicians, educators, and caregivers how to incorporate Hip Hop into therapeutic and wellness settings.

Today, BEAT’s mission is to develop inclusive, accessible arts education rooted in Hip Hop culture. Through their programming, clinical research, and professional development, BEAT champions Hip Hop as a dynamic tool in improving physical and mental wellbeing.

To achieve this mission, the BEAT team works together to execute a 3-pronged program tunnel:
1) Arts Education: We offer arts education programs rooted in Hip Hop culture to youth in under-resourced communities and to people with disabilities.
2) Clinical Research: Informed by observations of our programs, we conduct clinical research on the efficacy of Hip Hop as a pathway to physical and mental wellbeing.
3) Training& Tools: Based on our research, we train professionals across industries to use Hip Hop as a tool to advance clinical and health practices.

BEAT regularly partners with schools, community organizations, and public institutions throughout the five boroughs to make our programs as accessible as possible: instead of requiring youth to come to us, we bring our programming to them -- to the community center, library branch, or school auditorium in their own neighborhood.

Moreover, we have also built a number of strategic partnerships with organizations so as to offer our programming on a sustained basis. For example, we have taught our BEAT Rockers (beatboxing) program at the Lavelle School for the Blind in Bronx, NY, for over ten years. The majority of the students at Lavelle are minority youth with multiple disabilities who are from low-income households -- precisely the population we’re so committed to empowering. We’ve fostered relationships with NYC’s Department of Youth and Community Development, Mayor’s Office for Persons with Disabilities, and multiple schools in NYC’s Department of Education, as well as independent organizations such as the Center for Community Alternatives, Quality Services for the Autism Community, and AHRC.

We have also begun fostering relationships with organizations who operate primarily in the virtual sphere. For instance, we currently offer our programs through Outschool, an online music education website, and are fostering relationships with both educational and nonprofit organizations in New York, Pennsylvania, and California to offer our programs using online platforms.

In addition, we’ve begun creating original content to freely share on our social media platforms. For instance, we recently launched our BEATbox Band video series which teaches learners aged 3-7 the basics of how to beatbox. All episodes of this series are available for free on our YouTube channel, and have been added to the virtual offerings at multiple children’s hospitals nationwide to heal their hearts as doctors care for their bodies. We hope to create more content to spark joy in the students we serve.

For youth who are unable to access our programming either in-person or in live virtual instruction, we’ve also developed pre-recorded boxsets of our most popular programs. Doing so grants our students the freedom to access our engaging and lively instruction at a time that works for them.

No matter the circumstances, BEAT remains committed to fulfilling the social, emotional, and creative potential of underserved youth and youth with disabilities. Hip Hop offers a safe haven for youth to work through their feelings of anger and grief. We are constantly innovating new ways to effectively engage with a broader swath of students to uplift their necessary voices.

BEAT is comprised of a multi-ethnic, diverse community of talented artists, musicians, and administrative personnel who share the vision of bridging the arts and creative self-expression to underserved communities. Currently, we have a roster of twenty (20) program instructors, four (4) full-time administrative staff members and two (2) volunteer Board members, who are 80% visible minority, 60% women, 40% foreign-born, 20% LGBT, and 20% with a speech-related disability.

All of our instructors are professional artists who are not only renowned in their field but also educators trained to teach special needs students. They know how to provide quality music instruction in a sensitive environment where each student has a unique need and ability. By creating a platform for award-winning artists to channel their talent into innovative instruction, BEAT’s working to ensure all students, regardless of ability, are empowered to creatively express themselves beyond their limitations.

BEAT’s in-depth reach, impact, and influence over the past decade has been widely recognized by a global audience. The United Nations nominated BEAT for the 2018 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Action Award for global impact. BEAT performed music showcases and conducted workshops at the 2018 Global Festival of Action in Bonn, Germany. BEAT also partnered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to conduct BEAT Breakers Workshops with over 500 youth in the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan in September 2018. We signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to expand international programming in Canada through partnerships with the School for Social Entrepreneurs and the nonprofit organization, Intervene, as well as to Germany through a partnership with the Berlin-based, BMW Foundation. We’re in the process of forming a partnership with the National Stuttering Association to bring our programming to their 179 active chapters, as well as forming BEAT Chapters around the world.

Our work was recently captured in a documentary-series titled “We Speak Music: When Art Meets Therapy,” presented by Nokia Bell Labs and featured on Swissbeatbox, the world’s largest beatbox platform. The 13-minute film poignantly highlights how beatboxing helps young people communicate beyond their visual and developmental challenges.

Moreover, in 2019 alone, we were awarded grants from the Laura B. Vogler Foundation, Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation, ARC Tank 3.0, and the prestigious New York City Community Trust to expand our programming and our capacity-building projects.

In 2020, we became an approved continuing education provider for the American Speech-Language Hearing Association. We offer courses that teach speech therapists and allied professionals how to beatbox, and how to use beatboxing as an intervention to improve engagement and achieve speech goals.

The most exciting of our capacity building projects is Alphabeat, which is based on our ten years of success in our BEAT Rockers program. It is currently in the beta stage of development. Alphabeat is is the first speech therapy tool designed to encourage regular, self-directed practice by teaching kids how to beatbox. It will be available for subscription purchase on the Teachable platform. Created in partnership with professional speech therapists and based on peer-reviewed clinical research, Alphabeat helps your child improve their speech, boost their self-confidence, and create a lifelong connection to music with the only instrument they’ll ever need: their voice.

We’re committed to making all our initiatives here at BEAT as astounding as the students we serve.