NEWS! Murals for Madagascar

Hi All,

I just received exciting news from Madagascar! I used to work there as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and when I got back to the US, I started a project with a 4th grade classroom in my hometown, where I taught them about Madagascar and we did art projects related to the country, and then we also painted a big mural on cloth. The mural was about how to care for a mosquito net - in pictures and also with words in Malagasy (pictures speak louder than words in rural areas with high illiteracy rates). We shipped the mural to a contact in Madagascar, and the mural was installed on the wall of a rural hospital. Here was my original design, the kids who made it, and its final installation:

I told Peace Corps staff that they were welcome to distribute my design to new volunteers looking for projects they could do in and with their communities, to help fight the spread of Malaria. Well, I've received some pictures of new Peace Corps Volunteers' murals! Love it. I can't wait to do this again with another classroom. Really teaches kids to think globally, while teaching art technique and skills and also about another country they may not know much about. Want to get involved? If you are a current Peace Corps Volunteer and want details on installation and my design, contact me!! I'm still hoping to create a set of instructions for classroom teachers to be able to re-create this whole project themselves... but that have to come in time. :) YAY!!!

The Kickstarter that never happened... (yet)

This is the Kickstarter project that never happened. YET! I say "yet" because the project is still on my lifelong "to do" list. The video below and this website all happened thanks to a UO journalism student who interviewed me and made them for a class assignment. At the time, I was still teaching art in the schools and had just completed my first mural for Madagascar with a 4th grade in Eugene. If you have no idea what project I'm talking about, watch the video and/or click the link above. 

The video was made last Spring. That following Summer, I was in Madagascar for a totally unrelated short-term job. While I was there, I asked the Director of Population Services International in an urban center of Northern Madagascar, (Diego-Suarez/Antsiranana) if they would be willing to help distribute and install the cloth murals around to rural villages when they go out to do their health presentations. The Director was beyond stoked on the idea, and agreed to help me whenever I could make more health murals with U.S. students and mail them over to him. I was of course, beyond stoked as well.

Presenting my project idea (in Malagasy of course ;)

This means that the project would go like this:

1.) I go into a school and teach a week(ish) long workshop about Madagascar to K-12 students. We learn about the country, and also do art projects relating to it. We also learn about mural-making, and make a mural together that visually explains a health issue (such as the care of mosquito nets, and/or the importance of using them to protect against Malaria).

2.) The mural (on cloth) gets shipped to the Director of PSI that I spoke with last Summer. He gets his Malagasy health professionals/presenters to bring the mural out with them when they go out to rural villages to do their presentations to communities. They install the mural (with the community's approval) on a wall somewhere in the village (hopefully at a clinic/hospital). This feels good because it is Malagasy people doing all the talking to other Malagasy people, and just using our mural as a visual aid for their presentations/reminder for after they leave. And on our end, I'm helping expose American kids to another country they might not have known much about before.

3.) Repeat steps 1-2.

Someday, I will do this again. And again. Posting this blog so I don't lose my momentum, or let this one slip through the cracks while I'm busy focusing on my JOB job, and mural business. Not letting it go!

IT HAPPENED! - An Idea Becomes A Reality.

I can already tell, this post is going to be a meaningful, mushy one.  Way back last Summer, I had an idea.  This idea was to create a mural with kids (something I already do in my job a lot anyways), but on specialized fabric, instead of a wall. The mural would get sent to a rural village in Madagascar (the country I served in as a Peace Corps Volunteer 2008-2010), where a current PC Volunteer would help recruit villagers to finish and install it on the wall of their hospital.  The mural's subject matter would have to do with Malaria prevention, helping to educate through pictures, those who could not read.  If you want the WHOLE scoop, read this earlier post.

Anyway, so then after forming the idea last Summer, I found an extraordinary Principal with an extraordinary staff (Bertha Holt Elementary), to help me make this idea into a reality.  They wrote a grant to the Eugene Education Fund to get a residency with me funded through my employer, Lane Arts Council.  I also got my old Peace Corps supervisor to help me find the right PCV and village to coordinate with.  The villagers there already knew the deal about using mosquito nets to prevent Malaria, but they needed more info about the care and maintenance of the nets to be dispersed.  I came up with the design below, explaining to wash the net with regular soap not detergent (so as not to wash away the mosquito repellent), dry the net in the shade not sun, tuck it tightly under the mattress, and repair any holes it gets.  The language is Malagasy.

Then, during a week-long residency with the Holt 4th graders, I taught them about Madagascar, did art projects with them that related to it's unique flora and fauna, and facilitated them in painting the mural on the fabric.

When completed, the mural was shipped to Madagascar, along with some adorable postcards that the 4th graders hand drew and wrote on in Malagasy (with some help from me of course). What follows are the pictures we received of it hung in it's final home, the hospital wall in Tsivangiana, Madagascar.

Women waiting in line at the hospital to get vaccines for their babies.

Eddie Carver, the Peace Corps Volunteer who helped us coordinate and finish this project.

Now comes the mush.  I really just am so floored to see these pictures.  That a mural my students did, made it all the way across the ocean and is now on a wall in a hospital in the middle of nowhere, where it will help educate some people on an important health topic.  I can't wait to share these pictures with the 4th graders, along with the postcards we received back from Eddie's english club in response to theirs.  I can't wait to show them that at such a young age, they can make an impact.  This is how it feels to make a difference, I will tell them. YOU MATTER. 

Eddie also told me that the original design template I created is now being replicated by Peace Corps Volunteers all over Madagascar, in their own villages.  During training, Peace Corps Volunteers are all encouraged to paint world map murals on the walls of schools, and murals about Malaria are starting to be encouraged more and more in recent years.  Peace Corps wouldn't push this so much to people who aren't necessarily artists, unless they found it to be worthwhile as a form of community development.  These pictures disperse information to the public in a bright and colorful way, and are especially crucial to those who could not read other posted health bulletins and announcements.  ART MATTERS.  

So. Happy. I think of this is as the pilot project.  I envision doing many more of these, about other relevant health topics, all over Madagascar.  No, all over Africa.  Attention International health NGO's: call me ;)