Boston Children's Museum

Purpose: Serving as Centers of Community Engagement The children's Museum, Boston (TCM) is committed to serving a culturally and economically diverse audience, providing resources for parents and teachers, and exploring new methods of informal education and new roles for museums. Multicultural programs have contributed to the diversity of the museum's audience, and an annual calendar of Native American, African American, Japanese, Chinese, and Latino programs has attracted new visitors. In connection with its new permanent exhibit "Boston Black: A City Connects," TCM will use this grant to support Boston Black Inside Out, an outreach project that will present public programs for families, structured school programs, curricula, and outreach strategies. The project will increase TCM's capacity to serve as a center for community engagement by partnering with community groups to develop and conduct high-quality programs for students and the general public. TCM will (1) create and conduct staff training programs focusing on interactions with diverse populations; (2) design and conduct programs that feature ethnic and national groups of the African Diaspora; and (3) develop new strategies for engaging more black families with the museum, encouraging them to identify with its exhibitions and programs.