We are both originally Bangladeshi but grew up elsewhere. Shah lived for most of his childhood in Indonesia, and was surrounded by a diverse community both at the international school that he attended as well as through exposure to the United Nations where his father worked. When she was young, Samina's family immigrated to the US when her father pursued his PhD here. They lived for years in a university's graduate student housing that was filled with families from many different countries.

Currently, we live in the northern suburbs of Boston. Though we love our town and have friends of different nationalities, we are in a much more homogenous community than the ones that either of us grew up in. We became more aware of this five years ago when Arman (who was then 7) said something that caught us off guard; he made the innocent observation to Samina that "both of my grandmothers have an accent but you and I don't". We realized then that he did not realize that we have an accent also - ours is an American accent - and one that is of the northeastern flavor! This simple event led to various discussions, and we felt our kids were not getting the exposure that we wanted them to have to greater diversity in race, ethnicity, culture, religion, and socio-economic background.

Click here to read more about the Karim family and see photos of some of the places they've traveled.

In its first 50 years, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) awarded more than $5 billion in grants to recipients in every state and U.S. jurisdiction, the only arts funder in the nation to do so. On December 8, 2015, the NEA announced awards totaling more than $27.6 million in its first funding round of fiscal year 2016, including an Art Works award of $35,000 to BCC. The Art Works category supports the creation of work and presentation of both new and existing work, lifelong learning in the arts, and public engagement with the arts through 13 arts disciplines or fields.

NEA Chairman Jane Chu said, "The arts are part of our everyday lives - no matter who you are or where you live - they have the power to transform individuals, spark economic vibrancy in communities, and transcend the boundaries across diverse sectors of society. Supporting projects like the one from Boston Children's Chorus offers more opportunities to engage in the arts every day."   Click here to read more.