Community Outreach: Crossroads: AF de Boston et de Cambridge (MA)
Massachusetts
Crossroads is a project of the French Library and Cultural Center/Alliance Française of Boston. Inner-city school students from francophone immigrant communities (primarily Haitian, African, and West Indian) are matched with high school students of French in the nearby more affluent suburbs with the aim of fostering cross-cultural understanding and improving language skills in English and French.
The students meet monthly at the French Library/Alliance Française where activities may range from discussing a novel, listening to a poetry reading, or watching a contemporary film to preparing a meal together with the help of a French chef. Cultural activities are also arranged. In 2004, Crossroads students visited the Gauguin exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts and participate in a studio arts workshop where they learned about the factors that influenced Gauguin's work and were invited to create Tahitian inspired art under the tutelage of a museum school instructor.