ArtsSmarts is funded through the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Education and Early Childhood Development’s Cultural Connections Strategy, Equinor, and ArtsNL. In Newfoundland and Labrador ArtsSmarts is managed by ArtsNL.
The ArtsSmarts Mission: To afford schools and their communities a chance to enhance artistic activities linked to educational outcomes. The desire is to encourage students to develop their intellectual skills through active participation in the arts. In this context, the program goal is to engage young people in artistic activity to develop supporters and practitioners of the arts by nurturing creative thinkers.
Objectives:
- To build long-term, self sufficient local partnerships that link young people, artists or arts organizations, schools, and the broader community;
- To enable schools to integrate arts activities in a variety of non-arts subject areas that align with the provincial curriculum;
- To provide opportunities for young people to actively participate in the arts, thereby encouraging them to develop their intellectual and communication skills; and
- To enhance appreciation of the importance of culture and the arts, thereby encouraging long-term support for artists and arts organizations.
Only professional individual artists, groups of artists, or professional not-for-profit arts organization are eligible to work in schools on ArtsSmarts Projects.