Social impact

Here to Create

We believe everyone has the right to be creative.

Here to Create is our social impact program.

Together with our partners, we create opportunities to experience and disrupt inequity in creative education. 


WHAT WE DO
 

We partner with organizations that embrace the healing power of creativity, and that  advocate for civil and human rights.

We provide support that includes:

  • Education – scholarships to our courses and workshops
  • Connection – shared resources, learning, and community-building 
  • Amplification – storytelling across our platforms and network

We work with global, national and local organizations that support communities including:

  • People experiencing systems of inequity due to racial/ethnic identity, LGBTQ+, and disability
  • Changemakers and emerging leaders
  • Humanitarian, disaster relief, and COVID workers

Creativity + Arts Nonprofit Scholarships

Many nonprofits that creatively empower low-income women and girls are currently struggling with reduced funding during COVID.


We partner with nonprofit leaders, give scholarships to classes, and together create visual stories and campaigns that mobilize communities, inspire women and girls to be creative, and light up the world.

BIPOC Scholarships

We envision an inclusive, anti-racist, multicultural world, rooted in social justice and community development.

Both behind the camera and in classes, Melisine works with brands, non-profit organizations, institutions and individual creatives to create media representative of the world we live in and the better one we are working together to create. 

Our BIPOC fund makes our creative classes possible for motivated BIPOC students, regardless of financial situation.

We give scholarships to individuals and partner with organizations committed to making creativity more inclusive to female BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities. 

Scholarships are awarded to: 

  • Female women of color actively creating or building businesses and/or programs that aim to make creativity practices more inclusive to female BIPOC communities.
  • Non-profit organizations or for-profit businesses with a purpose to make creativity more inclusive to female BIPOC communities.

COVID Front Line Scholarships

COVID Front Line Nurses, Doctors, and Therapists qualify for our COVID Scholarship Fund. 

Essential employees are the backbone of the battle against COVID-19. Their resilience and efforts to help communities stay safe, healthy and keep a sense of normalcy cannot be understated.

Many of our students have been COVID front line doctors and therapists.
Here is a quote from one of our doctors who explained the effect of the class on him:

“As a COVID front line doctor, I can relieve pain and help patients. We doctors are concentrated on the left brain— ‘check, check, check. Test one, test two, test three. Next patient, next station.’ My left brain operates in a more engineering, scientific world. 

But if doctors only use that part of their brains, they can burn out.

I love Melisine’s classes as a way to strengthen my creative right brain. 

The right brain creativity takes me away from stress, cortisol levels, and high adrenaline during the COVID-19 period.

I love using my creativity to express myself and make people happy. To me, making people smile is the most beautiful thing in the world.”
- Yuri Nakasato

MEET MELISINE

Melisine is a media strategist and branding photographer with inspiring changemakers and brands.


Passionate about community, mental health, and creativity, Melisine has worked for years on issues related to women and girls. 

As a photographer and educator, she works with women leaders who share her mission to empower women and girls in the arts, writing, mental health, fitness, and wellness.

Together they create images and media campaigns that mobilize communities to feel more creatively empowered and connected. 

Clients find Melisine's work to be transformative because it goes beyond typical photography and marketing strategy, utilizing her extensive experience with coaching, healing, art therapy, mindset, and personal growth work.