New Iberia now has a place for youths to indulge in creativity and arts and crafts free while building self-esteem at the same time.

The Acadiana Creative Arts Foundation at the Sheriff’s Outreach Center on Hopkins Street opened a month ago, offering up to six free creative art classes every week for Iberia Parish children ages 8 to 18.

“We want to give children a better education exposure,” said Syvia Etie, the center’s founder. “You know, things outside their normal setting that they don’t seem to be getting too much of in the schools.”

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The center’s volunteer artists teach children a variety of classes including drawing, painting, mosaic art, paper crafts and other “weird” things, Etie said.

Classes are every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, beginning at 1:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. However, there are not enough children enrolled yet for the 3 p.m. class to be held.

Each class has a maximum capacity of six students, with one teacher and an assistant for each class. Etie said when the center acquires more volunteer teachers, more students will be able to participate.

“We really focus on individualizing,” Etie said. “We’re not looking at quantity, we’re looking at quality. The classes will grow eventually.”

Etie had the idea for the center two years ago and has worked for two years to attain non-profit status and find a location.

She hopes to build an expanded center that includes an area for dance lessons, a music room and comfort spots for children to play games or do homework.

The foundation is looking for local corporate sponsors and more volunteer artists to teach classes, she said.

“I’ve been an artist for years, and I realize we have no artistic outlets for children in the community,” Etie said. “I wanted to be able to give back to the community, and I looked around and noticed a bunch of art supplies sitting around my house.”

Etie, a New Iberia native, moved home in 2001 after traveling the world as a flight engineer for the Air Force and earning a Ph.D. She suffers from lupus, a painful disease that, among other things, affects skin, tissue, joints and kidneys.

“Being disabled really gives you a lot of time to sit around and think,” she said. “My free time has been devoted to trying to get this creature to come to life.”

Sylvia Davis, who works at the Outreach Center, said the center focuses on at-risk youths in the area. She helped Etie in bringing the creative arts foundation to the Outreach Center.

“The cultural arts classes fit right in with what we’re trying to do here,” Davis said. “It’s just another way to build self esteem and get a child engaged in something positive.”

The children participating are responding well, Davis said, adding she was suprised to see how much natural artistic ability the children already have.  The center not only focuses on self esteem, but also teaches children how to respect themselves and other people, Etie said.

“I can see by the interest that’s been coming to us that this service is needed,” Etie said. “This is long past due. We need to work to provide the resources and finances as a community to let this grow.”