UB's Philippines Empowerment Project Leads to Art Show, Student Travel
February 26, 2015
Contact: University Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
A joint project by the University of Baltimore and a nonprofit dedicated to empowering women and their families in the effort to overcome global poverty has resulted in an exhibition, "Artists of the Visayas: Enable a Woman—Change the Future," opening on Sunday, March 1 at the World Trade Center in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. The exhibition will continue throughout March—Women's History Month—in the building's lobby on Pratt Street.
The nonprofit, NEW Pathways, is led by Christine Nielsen, professor emerita in UB's Merrick School of Business and the University's Yale Gordon Chair of Distinguished Teaching Emerita. For the past several years, NEW Pathways has been engaged in efforts here and abroad to help women in the Philippines become entrepreneurs by starting up and sustaining small businesses. Many of these endeavors involve arts and crafts. Nielsen has made several trips to the islands, and has encouraged UB students to be part of this cultural exchange with economics at its heart. She also has hosted women from the Philippines at the University of Baltimore, and has made her efforts an important part of UB's service learning course work.
Now, NEW Pathways has gathered the original artwork of several of these women, who come from remote, rural areas of the Philippines. Although many have never expressed themselves through art before, their work is inspiring, colorful and intricate.
Through a UB Foundation Fund for Excellence grant awarded last fall, exhibits at the World Trade Center and at the University will take place. In addition, the grant will allow 10 UB graduate students to travel with Nielsen to the Philippines on a service learning course next January.
"The students will play crucial roles," Nielsen says, "working with counterpart students from a local university to conduct interviews with participants, assess their needs and assist them in their business start-ups."
For more information about this project, send an email to chris@newpathwaystoenterprise.org.
The University of Baltimore is a member of the University System of Maryland and comprises the College of Public Affairs, the Merrick School of Business, the UB School of Law and the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences.