TIPA was co-founded by Emilie Carosin, PhD (Researcher in psychology and education) and Angelique de La Hogue (Educationalist). It began as a pilot project in 2007 for children experiencing learning or social difficulties at Black River Government School. The project was set up in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, ZEP (Zones d’Education Prioritaire) Unit, and it was based on previous research supporting the view that teaching arts using interactive pedagogy fosters the development of moral values. It was also in line with the mission of the Ministry of Education and Human Resources to promote essential life skills, critical and innovation thinking, and citizen’s values. Weekly creativity art workshops were dedicated to 52 children experiencing learning difficulties during school hours to realize different artistic activities in fields such as circus, theatre, story writing and creative arts.

In 2008, TIPA was registered as an Association and the art workshops were carried out with 57 children. In 2009 the Association started working with another school, Barkly Government School. During that year, in addition to art workshops carried out with children experiencing learning difficulties, TIPA supported the teachers in producing revision material with all the students during the last school term. This increased our number of beneficiaries to 350 children. In 2010, the project was extended to two more schools: André Bazerque Government School and Guy Rozemont Government School with 655 children being impacted. During that year, creativity classes were carried out with all the students during the second term while the first and last terms were used for artistic activities focused on children with learning or social difficulties. The realization of creativity classes to all pupils during one of the school terms in 2009 and 2010 was a pilot phase for TIPA’s project.

As from 2011, TIPA started to intervene during creativity class hours in collaboration with the teachers, working with all the pupils of the class during the three trimesters. As a result, every single child in the schools participated in our activities. TIPA continued the development of its action, implementing its Programme, 2012 with 900 children and 40 teachers in 4 ZEP schools.

In 2013, we had to downsize our action and team, due to limited financial resources. Despite this, TIPA sustained the activities scheduled in its Programme Plan 2013-2015, in 2 ZEP schools, impacting the lives of more than 380 vulnerable children. We also supported the implementation of Parents’ Club Project in Guy Rozemont GS, and were involved in several trainings and seminars addressed to teachers.

Since the beginning of our action, we impacted on the following beneficiaries:

• More than 1780 children from 7 ZEP schools
• More than 65 teachers
• More than 600 teachers through training workshops (MIE and ZEP)
• More than 40 parents
• More than 50 NGO educators

We also worked in collaboration with more than 100 artists and 250 volunteers.