Please bear with us while we reorganize information and prepare to launch our newly designed site.

And in the meantime, contact me if you have any questions about ADVOCATO.

Rachel S.H. Valenti
(804) 355-0543
rvalenti@advocato.org

I just love it when someone shares my passions and expresses them with exquisite eloquence. Here’s one of those expressions:

"At the heart of this social vision is a belief in cultural and creative expression as a means of affecting deep and lasting social change. Laws may be altered, court decisions may be handed down, officials may be voted in and out of office—but if the majority of the people do not believe in the possibility and the rightness of their/our common cause, nothing authentic or long-lasting will be changed. This is where art, artists and artist educators play an essential role. If we want freedom, we must promote free expression. If we want equity, we must have equal access and support in expressing ourselves. If we want respect and love and beauty among us and all our many communities, we must actively and systematically promote it through our art and through our teaching of others. Teaching, in this sense, becomes a political act, a conscious effort to build a movement of people prepared to facilitate and participate in social change."

She said it! on the Community Arts Network Reading Room