Endorsements MYX Press Releases MYX in the News Build Magazine Spring 2007 We're Meeting a Queen is an essay published in Build Magazine profiling one participants experience on our art-based community service trip to Costa Rica over the summer. Check it out CN8 TV and NBC 10 Philadelphia: March 2006 MYX Murals for Katrina Community featured on CN8 and NBC 10 On March 23 and 24, 2006 MYX attended the National Service Learning Conference in Philadelphia and created a 12-foot x 12-foot friendship mural for students in Pascagoula, Mississippi, a community devastated by Hurricane Katrina. More than 150 youth conference attendees painted positive messages, poetry and symbols on the mural entitled "Strokes of Strength & Hope: A Youth Friendship Mural". On May 15, MYX will travel to Pascagoula, courtesy of Southwest Airlines, and present the mural as a gift to students at Central Elementary School. See CN8 video clip [ requires Quicktime Player ] See NBC 10 video clip [ requires Quicktime Player ] Philadelphia Weekly: March 2004 Spring Guide 2004: One From the Art Young Philadelphia artists are doing really cool stuff. See profile of MYX co-director Michelle Ortiz. Innovation Philadelphia: March 2004 Profile: Multicultural Youth Exchange Multicultural Youth Exchange (MYX) is a Philadelphia-based non-profit organization founded in 2001 by Philadelphia entrepreneurs Josette Bonafino and Ian Cross. More... CN8 TV, Philadelphia: July 2003 See video clip [ requires Quicktime Player ] ABC TV, Philadelphia: June 29, 2002 Fast Forward 2002 Centuries ago the Vikings found two remote islands in the North Atlantic... See video clip [ requires Flash 6 Player ] (Clip courtesy of WPVI, Philadelphia) IcelandCulture.com June 8, 2002 Free Thought Visiting American artist, Diane Burko, and Icelandic anthropologist, Árni Björnsson, to give free lectures at Hitt Husid in Reykjavik on Saturday, June 15. More... The Summer Pennsylvanian May 30, 2002 Four teens travel to Iceland Led by two Penn grads, the trip's focus is on art as a unifier. by Mary Clarke-Pearson For most people, the word 'art' conjures images of paintings, sculptures and other mediums of creative expression. But for two Penn graduates -- Josette Bonafino (CAS, '88) and Diane Burko (GFA, '69) -- the meaning of this word encompasses a much wider breadth. More... IcelandCulture.com May 22, 2002 Creative Exchange A group of young art students from Philadelphia USA will be traveling to Iceland in June on an art exchange program, The Youth Artist Exchange, with the Philadelphia based, non-profit art organization MYX. The group of students will be accompanied among others by renowned landscape painter Diane Burko who has painted many of the world's volcanoes in places like Costa Rica, Alaska, Hawaii, Southern Italy and soon Iceland. More... KYW News Radio 1060 Web Site Friday, May 3, 2002 New Art Gallery Shows Off Young Talent by KYW's Karin Phillips A new art gallery has opened up in Old City, exhibiting works by area young people, expressing their thoughts on diversity and tolerance. MYX, or the Multi-Cultural Youth Exchange, was founded by Josette Bonafino and Ian Cross in direct response to the events of September 11th. The opening of the MYX Gallery at 110 Church Street is the start of the movement, says Josette, to get kids together: "The idea behind the MYX Gallery is to allow kids -- teenagers specifically -- to be able to explore themes in diversity, tolerance and multiculturalism, through their art work and to be able to show it in a professional setting." Paintings, digital and mixed media from kids in various youth centers will be shown now through July 19th. Work soon will be solicited from district schools and from artists with their own youth initiatives. Philadelphia Weekly December 12, 2001 Pg 15 CULTURE CLUB Corporations may be sinking left and right, but there's always room for another nonprofit - particularly like MYX (Multicultural Youth Exchange), which addresses the particular problems that created and were created by the events of Sept. 11. The national organization was born 10 weeks ago out of the for-profit company Culture Quest - which plans tours abroad for high school students - when Culture Quest saw its business slowing down this past fall. "School boards were saying they didn't want to send kids abroad, but teachers were saying, 'This is the exact time we need to be sending kids abroad,'" says Josette Bonafino, MYX's founder and director. While Culture Quest is on hiatus, MYX's mission is to foster international relations and tolerance between cultures in a time when national chauvinism is high. The group, which has a teacher advisory board, plans to hold an international teleconference at the Franklin Institute in which 150 school students can interact with students from other cultures. For the time being, MYX plans to subsist on corporate sponsorship - and later on, grants. In the meantime, the group is throwing a launch party this Thursday night to "introduce itself" to the city. Eventually the group plans to begin facilitating e-pals for middle and high school students and holding teleconferences annually all around the country. (Elisa Ludwig) © 2002 -2004 Multicultural Youth eXchange.