About Us

Who are we

We are a 501(c)3 state registered nonprofit, created from the ideas of two high school students. Founded in the year 2021, we made it our mission to spread awareness and help more children have access to art as a therapeutic experience amid such a mental health crisis with younger demographics.

Hi, our names are Ariana Balakrishnan and Avni Balakrishnan and we are high school students, class of 2023 and class of 2025. As we all know, spring 2020 was life-changing for everyone, ourselves included. Quarantine, with its lack of social interaction combined with seemingly constant devastating global news,  left us feeling alone. Being a freshman in high school and an 8th grader at the time, at the peak of our developmental years, this newfound isolation had a huge impact on our mental health. As Ariana found herself using art as a crutch, Avni instead used dance. At the time, we were not aware that we were subconsciously providing ourselves with a healthy outlet and a form of creative release for all of the pent-up emotions we were facing. Only months later would we come to realize how vital art and dance were in preserving our mental health during one of the most deflating periods of our life.  We used art and dance as an outlet during quarantine, and we want to be the facilitator for other children to also reap its benefits. This led us to create this nonprofit, Colors of Mind. Throughout the process of its creation, Ariana introduced Colors of Mind to her friend, Jaya Mahajan, and discovered that she too found art to be therapeutic and leaned into its power during quarantine. In addition to this, Avni introduced this project to her friend and dance teammate, Raven Norris, as she also went through something similar in quarantine. Adding them to the project as Vice President, Jaya and Ariana now work together to implement art while Raven and Avni worth together to implement dance as a therapeutic experience for children, in hopes of producing and spreading the same everlasting benefits it gave us throughout our Austin community.

Info

We are an organization dedicated to reaching as many children as possible, so we have decided to incorporate the idea of art and dance as a therapeutic experience rather than this being actual art/dance therapy sessions. This makes our sessions more accessible to all, negating the complications that arise where therapy is concerned. Having said that, the art therapist we are partnering with, Bethany Sweeden, is licensed and board certified, as well as dance/movement therapist Wakelyn Malitz, meaning they are true therapists with proper credentials issued by the state of Texas. We specifically chose this to ensure the best care and safety for children taking part in our sessions. We want this to be a positive experience and we only trust the most credible to do so.

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