In 2022, San Juan Hills student Nikita Karande founded a non-profit. Arts of Healing is a student founded non-profit that helps heal kids with social and emotional challenges.
“Arts of healing is a 501C3 certified non profit which uses art, painting and drawing to mitigate the mental health crisis amongst the youth,” said Arts of Healing Founder Nikita Karande, a senior at San Juan Hills High.
“We believe in a world where people should be happy and live vibrant lives. Our mission is to empower people of any background with the knowledge of visual arts, and use that medium to cope with various social and emotional challenges,” said Karande.
Karande found passion creating art at a very young age. Growing up she would find herself doodling in class and at home. Soon after this, she began attending advanced local art lessons to improve her talent.
“I’ve been an art student for over 10 years now. I have been going to a studio in Ladera for basically my whole life. I’ve been able to expand my knowledge of art through that,” said Karande.
Art was a form of expression and therapy for Karande regardless of her skill levels. She found herself free of stress after extensively working on a painting.This young artist shares her knowledge with many others such as friends and family to help them relieve anxiety.
“I haven’t just done one medium or style. I kept it broad and experimented with different types of techniques. I think it has helped me find good teaching material, which may be easier or harder,” said Karande.
Offering classes and workshops have helped Karande achieve the funding required to reach her goals with Arts of Healing. Birthday parties and Girl Scout events are organized to teach drawing and painting with proceeds flowing into her non-profit organization.
“Our goals are to expand in terms of our implementation with other companies. For example, this past summer we did programs with the boys and girls club of Irvine. Our main goal with that was a 6 week curriculum which we taught there which uses art as a healing tool and we taught it with our teenage volunteer team,” Karande explains.
“Our proceeds from fundraising come from events like partnership with the Girl Scouts of Orange County or we have done private art lessons taught by volunteers. These funds go towards mainly supplies and program implementation.” said Karande.
Karande and her volunteer team has created a variety of workshops for all ages, genders and ethnicities.
“I was Nikita’s troop advisor. Which means I helped her make connections to her agencies and signed off that she completed the project according to the Girl Scouts regulations,” said Arts of Healing volunteer Zeena Dhalla.
Dhalla helped Karande achieve her Girl Scout Gold Award through the Organization. Becoming a Girl Scout gave Karande the opportunity to teach girl scouts during her workshops.
“This year we have a club on campus, San Juan Hills Arts of Healing Club. I am a senior as well as most of our volunteers so the best part about this club is that incoming freshmen, sophomores and juniors can join. After the interview process these lowerclassmen can be handed the club to keep it going for as long as San Juan Hills is up and running,” exclaims Karande.
Karande and her volunteer team will lead meetings during lunchtime on Fridays. This club is open to any San Juan Hills student.
Karande continues to grow her volunteer team and reach her non-profit goals.
