Middle School students in Nicole Higgins’ art class are hard at work creating art for the Healing Together New Orleans Project that will be featured at the Healing Center on St. Claude Avenue for the month of April. This exhibit will open on Monday April 3rd at 1pm to kickoff National Crime Victims’ Rights Week April 2nd-8th, a national event to promote public awareness of crime victims’ rights and services for victims of all types of crime. The Healing Together New Orleans Art Exhibit and Community Resource Center will be featured at the Healing Center on St. Claude Avenue for the entire month of April.
Opening Event
Monday, April 3rd
1pm
New Orleans Healing Center
2372 St. Claude Avenue
This exhibit is being hosted by Southern United Neighborhoods (SUN), a nonprofit that works with low income families, and will feature art by community leaders and students from Arise Academy, as well as from victims of crime. Residents are invited to come out to the exhibit to see the great community artworks that embody this year’s NCVRW theme of Strength, Resilience, and Justice. Resources for crime victims and their families will also be available for community members.
The New Orleans Healing Center incorporates over 25 various privately-run businesses and organizations (silos) to help holistically heal the surrounding neighborhoods. These silos include; AHA (Affordable Healing Arts, Magnolia Physical Therapy, ASI Credit Union, New Orleans Food Coop, Crouch Law, Island of Salvation Botanica, Café Istanbul and many others. The New Orleans Healing Center is excited to link these survivors with National Crime Victims’ Rights Week.
Community leaders, Sheriff Marlin Gusman, and organizations that provide services for crime victims and their families, as well as reentry programs for recently incarcerated will also be on hand to provide information about their services.
By increasing the general public’s awareness of crime victims’ and survivors’ rights and available resources, SUN is providing a critical public service to the community. According to Steve Derene, Executive Director of the National Association of VOCA Assistance Administrators, which administers the National Crime Victims’ Rights Week Community Awareness Project, “It is critically important that crime survivors in New Orleans know that help and hope are available to them.”
This project is supported by a National Crime Victims’ Rights Week Community Awareness Project subgrant awarded by the National Association of VOCA Assistance Administrators under a Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) grant from the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.
