ReCreate Art a Lao Family Youth Program Funding for this project was provided by the Solid Waste Management Coordinating Board through Community POWER: Partners on Waste Education and Reduction.

Passages After School Program ReCreate Art Through online research, field trips, and creative projects, Hmong youth will discover how disposal of household waste and toxic substances affects the parks, lakes, rivers, and woods that they and their families enjoy. They will change their own behaviors and convince their friends and families to change.

Community Background As a former refugee group, the Hmong: Came from a culture of survival, some as recent at 5-7 yrs ago Strong lifestyle traditions already in place Community still identified as low income, change comes hard

Living in Laos

Living in Minnesota

3 Focus Areas 1.Reuse and Reduce 2.Recycling 3.Hazardous Household Wastes Community Focus group for feedback.

Focus Area #1 - Reuse and Reduce We Found Out 1.Hmong are great at reusing! - From a culture of reusing useful goods - Very value conscious 2.Reducing is a challenge - Didnt have much in the first place, more sounds better - Large families collecting, hoarding

Focus Area #2 - Recycling We Found Out 1.Positive reinforcement -Follow successful footsteps of others -Community reinforcement

Focus Area #3 – Hazardous Household Waste Removal We Found Out 1.What? -This was a foreign concept, no general concern -Keeping and holding on to important goods like cleaners, gasoline, paints -Families were open to change

Rethink Recycling Curriculum Giving content to our media and art programs. 1. Based off information we gathered through evaluation questions. - U1, U2, U3, U4, T1, R1, R2 2. Curriculum was a guide for students to find answers online. 3. Activity assigned to each eval question

Program Numbers -51 students participated in the program -41 completed the Rethink Recycling curriculum -Of these, Thirty-five (35) of the 41 students (85%) who completed the survey said, yes they made positive changes in behavior towards reducing waste, recycling or managing toxic waste has due to their participation in this program. -The others answered that they were already doing it.

Program Numbers -38 students responded with pledges saying they were willing to make two waste/toxicity reduction changes in their own lives -25 parents signed these pledges to adopt new practices at home and keep their kids accountable for these life changes -27 students participated in creating an art project based on reusable materials gathered from the community

Thank You! ReCreate Art – Passages After School Program Lao Family Community of MN 1299 Arcade St., MN Vern Xiong – Youth & Family Program Mngr Kia Kehrer – Youth Program Outreach