Falling Into Another School Year - September 2025
Welcoming Week: PRYSE Academy Student Mural
Last week, we were honored to have the student mural from PRYSE Academy, facilitated by Conor Coleman, showcased at the opening proclamation of Welcoming Week 2025! Welcoming Week is a global campaign started by Welcoming America to bring folks of all backgrounds together to connect, celebrate, and affirm the importance of welcoming and inclusive communities. The mural will be on display at the City County building through October, and to learn more about the opening proclamation at the City County building, click this link.
See below for the official artist’s statement for the piece.
The mural on display at the City County Building in downtown Pittsburgh.
"PRYSE Students, Conor Coleman; “Immigrants Make America, 2025”; Acrylic on canvas
Across five weeks, over 100 youth with immigrant and refugee backgrounds participated in a mural workshop at the ARYSE Summer Camp, PRYSE Academy. Spanning grades 6-12, this group of students represents over 15 countries of origin, including Afghanistan, Burundi, Cameroon, Columbia, Nicaragua, DRC, Eritrea, Guatemala, Guinea, Mexico, Nigeria, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, and Venezuela. PRYSE Academy has been operating every summer at The University of Pittsburgh since 2022, and recently completed its 14th year of programming.
Students paint the foundation for the mural.
Led by facilitating artist Conor Coleman, participating youth examined their lives and expressed themselves through the elements of visual art. Week after week, artifacts of the youth's expression were layered atop each other to reveal a dense, complex, and multifaceted picture of immigrant life in America. As each weeks' participants progressed in chronological age, the mural is also a story about childhood, development, and the burgeoning social mind of adolescents everywhere. Together, the youth testimonies are woven together into a fabric of diverse yet shared identities held together by memory, experience, and intention, and exemplifies the vision of an America made stronger through acceptance and collaboration.
What do you see? What do you wonder? What would you ask the students involved?"
Program Updates
After School Club
"September is always an exciting month! This month we’ve spent a lot of time catching up with families through home visits for enrollment. I really value the time I get to spend with students and their families, and I always enjoy the chance to hear what the students’ goals for the year are.
After School Club will continue as a partnership between ARYSE and Dr. Schulze at Duquesne University, and the program will kick off for the year in the last week of September. I can’t wait to see what the year ahead has in store for After School Club!"
After School Club students pose for a picture near the rivers during a trip to the Point in 2024.
-Mike Sirera (he/him). Program Manager
Girls Art and Maker Group
"I’m grateful to start another year leading Girls Group! Once again, we’ll host our program at the Center for Creativity at Pitt, the space is perfect for students and our activities.
In preparation for this year, I worked closely with Rukiya, a longtime Girls Group student and recent graduate, as a Storytelling and Curriculum Planning intern. A part of her role was to give feedback on Girls Group and make suggestions for new activities or program structures. From working with her, I was inspired to plan more conversations on community, life after high school and pursuing creative careers.
Students participate in a vision board activity during program last year.
I’m excited to see how this year develops and excited for our first meeting! Many thanks to all the students, staff and volunteers that make this program possible, may this year be full of fun and connection."
-Erica Hughes (she/her). Program Manager
Youth Steering Committee
"We kicked off our first meeting with the Youth Steering Committee (YSC) in September 2025, which was the first program to be hosted in the new ARYSE office space. The students were thoroughly engaged in the conversation, and it was wonderful to see them gain clarity on their job roles and responsibilities. This year's goal is to focus on building essential leadership skills: collaboration, public speaking, and self-advocacy.
Members of YSC participate in an icebreaker activity in our new office.
We're thrilled to have enrolled 17 enthusiastic students in our program, and we're excited to work with them to help them grow and develop their skills. To kick-start the program, we organized an orientation session that included a fun kayaking activity in downtown Pittsburgh!
The first day was an amazing success, and we're looking forward to many more exciting experiences with the YSC. The energy and enthusiasm of the students are contagious, and we're confident that this program will be a valuable learning experience for everyone involved."
-Chance Eliah (he/him), Program Coordinator
Post-Secondary Support
"The end of the summer brought some opportunities to connect with other service providers assisting forcibly displaced youth and families—the annual gathering of Every Campus a Refuge and the Refugee Education Summit, both of which I was deeply grateful to experience.
The attendees of the ECAR Gathering stand on the steps of Marquis Hall at Lafayette College.
As the school year begins, the Post-Secondary Support Program is preparing to bring on about 20 new students to begin their exploration of goals and pathways for their life after high school. Meeting the new students and their families, or reconnecting with families who I’ve had the blessing to work with previously, has been an invigorating experience, and I’m really looking forward to our work together this year."
-Dakota Rottino-Garilli (she/her), Program Manager
PRYSE Academy
"And just like that, another fun-filled summer at PRYSE Academy has drawn to a close! This year saw many exciting changes to the program, including daily ESL sessions for all students, activities focusing on mental health awareness and counter-storytelling, a college-readiness course for youth leaders, and an updated programming model which provided every student the opportunity to learn in all five of the afternoon workshop offerings. I will be sharing more about these changes in a newsletter being released in October.
Cody leading the ARYSE chant at the Final Showcase in August.
We are so incredibly grateful for all of the staff, educators, partners, and volunteers who helped make this monumental year possible, and to our students for trusting us with their summer experience. Here’s to another incredible year of PRYSE Academy, and I look forward to seeing many of you throughout the school year!"
-Cody Weisel (he/him), Program Manager