As an activist project, Kate and I are restarting the art program at Thandokhulu high school in Mowbray, where Julian, Taylor, and Marie are interning. Last year three women who studied abroad from UConn started the art program. From what we heard from them, the students really liked the program and enjoyed just having time to spend doing something they enjoy with brand new art materials, all for them. Unfortunately, once they left, the art program fizzled out because there was no one to take over managing the program. So, Kate and I decided it would be nice for the students to restart the program. It runs every Friday immediately after school. It was a bit difficult to start up considering the schedule of the school and the busy staff, but we finally got it going. We’ve done it a few times and it has been so much fun! Surprisingly, there are more boys that usually show up than girls, but about 25 kids normally attend. They were so excited to use the brand new markers and colored pencils we bought for them last week to make fortune tellers. After they were done with that, they asked to just draw. Little did we know, they are amazing artists! They were drawing cartoons and their names in graffiti type writing better than some art students! We bring our computers so they can listen to music while they are working which creates a really fun environment. Last week, after most of the other students left, there were only a few boys left and we all danced to Michael Jackson. Not only are they great artists, but awesome dancers as well!!
So far we’ve done pretty simple projects with limited supplies just to make sure we had enough for the students that would show up. However, I am very excited for next week when we will be making tie-dye t-shirts with the kids. We had asked them if they would rather use clay or make tie-dye, and much to our surprise they all very enthusiastically said clay. Because this sounded odd to us, we asked if they knew what tie-dye was and most didn’t. So, after we explained and showed them a picture, they all hurriedly changed their minds to tie-dye over clay. We think it’s going to be something really exciting for them because I doubt any of them have done tie-dye before.
How are we funding all of this you may ask? Well, we owe a HUGE thank you to Brittany Florio, a student who came on the UConn Cape Town study abroad last year and ran the art program at Thandokhulu. She had raised $2000 American dollars for the art club and sent it all over to us to use for the students. This is more than we could have ever asked for. We’re sure that there will be left over to donate to Thandokhulu as well for their much needed text book fund. So, thank you Brittany for everything you’re doing for the kids at Thandokhulu, and Kate and I!
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