Mission Statement The Mission of "Images of the Motherland: Interactive Theatre" (IMIT) is to educate and expand public awareness and appreciation of West and North African Traditions through authentic presentations of drama, art, music, dance, and storytelling. Organization Summary Our major milestones over our 13 year history include our original educational dramatic productions: “Tales of the Dogon”, “The Legend of Kan-Kan Musa: Mansa of Mali (A Tale About the Equality of All Peoples), “Songhai” Anti-Gun/Anti-Violence Dramatic Production, “Mambugur (Grandfather) & Tales of the Dogon”, “The Life & Times of Omar ibn Sayyid” (18th Century Dramatic Historical Slave Reenactment) and “The Living History Heritage Project” features post performance Q & A, interactive workshop, 48 page “Omar ibn Sayyid Lesson Plan” PDF, “Timbuktu African Artifacts Exhibit & Workshop” containing unique museum quality artifacts and audience discussion. This has dramatically increased the academic and educational quality of our programs. The dramatic 18th century historical slave reenactment, "The Life of Omar ibn Sayyid" along with our performance arts and education program “Timbuktu African Artifacts Exhibit & Workshop” has been on tour interstate since 2009 at schools, libraries, museums, universities, theatres, community centers, festivals and houses of worship. Additionally, we were successful in garnering additional funding from other sponsors that made it possible for us to present and tour multi-state a total 21 performances during 2012 season. Our “Timbuktu African Artifacts Exhibit & Workshop” was augmented with additional unique museum quality artifacts, enlarging the exhibit, and extending presentations to show the current day relevancy of cultural historical artifacts to modern day society. In addition to our 48 page “Omar ibn Sayyid Lesson Plan” PDF., this dramatically increased our contributions to performance arts and education. We have also dramatically improved our outreach efforts by receiving “2012 Arts & Culture Awards” , “2012 Top Rated Non Profit Awards” and “2012 Great Non Profits Top-Rated Awards” from Great Non Profits. We have received a considerable number of reviews from laymen and professionals attesting to the quality and impact of our productions. Finally, we have entered into 2 wonderful promotional collaborations with Unity Productions Foundation-TV, to distribute “free copies” of the dvd “The Prince Among Slaves” and with History A&E to distribute “free copies” of “Civil War 150 Educators Guide “at all our “live” performances.