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| GLOW counselors and their fresh-baked bread! |
The first Bread House Cultural Center, www.bread-art-house.org, was born in the mountain town of Gabrovo, Bulgaria, on May 9th, 2009, housed at the old family house of I3C President, Nadezhda Savova, who ceded the space for service to the community as an experiment with a community cultural center where the core of art activities is food, and in particular the sculpture-like making and decorating of bread, being perhaps the most universally-appealing art/creative activity.
The Bread House strives to foment inter-religious dialogue and cooperation among different generations and professional and ethnic groups as all knead together around the same table and during the baking time in a fire oven people share their artistic talents, from poetry and music to theater and sewing. The major aim is to enable people to discover their creative potential and identify the social assets of the community – rather than delving into local problems - to help one another move forward.
The counselors and campers of LA GLOW were inspired by Nadezdha's mission and her enthusiasm. GLOW teaches respect of others, goal setting, and team work, all important aspects of the Bread House mission.
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| Mixing the dough, all hands in the bowl! |
There are Bread Houses in England, Russia, South Africa, Egypt, Brazil, Romania and many more countries, including the US. Harlem, New York, has an 'evolving' Bread House for low income children and their parents at Emmaus House (www.emmaushouse-harlem.org) Theater of Crumbs Program. Many of the parents have been recently released from prison. Bread making is used as a tool "to form family bonds and inter-generational cooperation." Other activities include "improvising and performing bread puppet plays as socially transformative theater (inspired by the Brazilian "Theater of the Oppressed" by Boal)."
Many thanks to Nadezdha for spreading her unique approach to creating community from the local to the global!
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