Young Aspirations Young Artists, Inc. (YAYA)

YAYA is a visual arts and entrepreneurship training program for artistically talented, youth (ages 13-25) in Orleans Parish, Louisiana. YAYA’s commercial and fine arts training program provides young artists with a unique apprenticeship program, a chance to work alongside professional artists, create public artworks, design merchandise, serve as cultural ambassadors, work as project managers, and mentor others in the arts. YAYA also brings the thrill of creating artwork to more than 4,000 young people each year, through after-school and summer programming, classroom presentations, public events, and community-building projects. Because of its dual emphasis on arts and career-building/entrepreneurship, YAYA is much more than an arts program - the program also meets the human and developmental needs of its young artists by building in them a set of core assets and competencies to enable them to participate successfully in adult life.