Referred by David Hayen, Esq., #1203

CONNECTING CULTURES 

One person has made a large difference in Los Angeles. 
Valerie Lezin founded the Connecting Cultures Mobile Museum (“CCMM”) in 1995.  CCMM is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization working to foster cultural awareness, understanding, and acceptance in LA youth. 

Students often have limited contact with cultures outside their own communities. This is why CCMM has been dedicated to connecting students with cultures outside their own. CCMM reaches between 16,000 and 20,000 students each year!

CCMM brings a unique cross-cultural museum experience directly into schools.  CCMM travels to each client school with its collection of over 3,000 international artifacts and converts a large room into an interactive exhibition with an accompanying presentation. The artifacts are from more than 75 countries.  CCMM focuses primarily on middle school-age students.  

CCMM’s collection of artifacts is split into three discrete rotating presentations: (1) Spiritual Connections; (2) Commercial Connections, and (3) Everyday Connections.  Students get to experience cultures from all levels of development and all periods of time – from modern cities to indigenous villages, from modern countries to ancient civilizations. Students get to travel the world without leaving home.  

From one school and 2,000 students to 20 schools and 20,000 students, CCMM enriches students’ cross-cultural educational experiences.  CCMM has had more than 100,000 student visitors to its cross-cultural museum experience.  CCMM helps bridge the gap between students’ diverse backgrounds, and teaching the lessons of acceptance and respect.

One of the strongest testaments to the quality of CCMM’s programs is that CCMM’s expansion has happened exclusively through teachers’ requests for its programs.