Project MAHITA Comes to Life (Again!)

Hi Everyone!

This week has been a very special one. My mom has been here visiting to help me with a pet project that is near to my heart. To learn more about it, check out this website that I built to explain the project. But overall, it's this:

PROJECT M.A.H.I.T.A. (Murals Aiding Health Information To All):

"MAHITA (verb) means "to see" in the Malagasy language, spoken on the island nation of Madagascar. American students (grades 3+) can help people in Madagascar by creating a mural on cloth, with an important health message. The mural they create will be shipped to Madagascar, and installed by Malagasy health educators in a rural village. Murals convey information visually, which is important where literacy rates are low. The American students gain a global perspective, while making a meaningful connection and artistic and helpful contribution to a rural community in Madagascar."

The idea for this project came to me in 2012, after I had returned from the Peace Corps in Madagascar, and was working as an intern at the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. I learned a technique in Philly, that allows you to paint a mural on special cloth, and then install it. My "aha" moment was when I realized this meant you could paint a mural anywhere in the world, and then install it anywhere ELSE in the world. Murals can teach things because they are PUBLIC and pictures can teach as well as written words. The idea for MAHITA solidified.

I made the first "pilot" Project MAHITA in 2012 with a group of 4th graders in Eugene. It was written up in the local paper! The kids had a blast and learned a lot about Madagascar. They created a mural about Malaria prevention - specifically, the care and use of mosquito nets. The mural was sent to a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in a rural village, who installed it on the wall of a local clinic where mothers could see it while waiting in line to get their babies vaccinated. That was all well and good, but the new model of MAHITA will have us sending murals to the director of a branch of Population Services International, in Madagascar (instead of to Peace Corps Volunteers). The PSI Director will have the Malagasy PSI Health Workers bring the mural along when they go out to rural villages to teach about Malaria, family planning, and other health topics. After the mural is explained, it will be installed, and left permanently somewhere in the village, as a reminder of what they taught. This model feels better because it's just an add-on to something that is already happening, Malagasy to Malagasy. 

So this week, was MAHITA project #2! My mom and I worked with an afterschool group at the school where I work. Overall, it went well and I think the kids enjoyed painting and learning. 

This coming week, my mom and I are teaching a seminar about Project MAHITA, to a group of about 40 teachers. We are hoping to gain some interest from teachers who may want to do this project in their classrooms. It's maybe a tough sell, in the current climate in education. BUT, we are hoping they see the value in, and find the time for, cultural exchange, community service projects, visual art practice, and instilling a global perspective in their students. Wish us luck! We are hoping to grow this project to the point where neither I, nor my mom, will need to be present for anyone to do this project. We are working on developing all the materials so that this can happen. 

It moves me so much that people I love are helping me on this project, in all different wonderful ways - sharing their knowledge and skills, to sharing their dollars. My good friend from Peace Corps, who is studying international development, will be researching the impact that murals have on impoverished communities abroad where literacy rates are low. My mom is making this her retirement project. My good family friend/mentor person is donating the money needed to buy a ton of the specialized mural fabric that we can provide to teachers doing the project. I truly have an incredibly supportive, caring, and smarty-pants network of friends and family. 

I am so happy to see my idea actually happening!! Here are some pics of the kids in action this week:

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!

Faux Kickstarter Campaign: Let's Do This!!

So awhile back, a talented journalism student from the University of Oregon used me as a subject for an assignment to write about art education. That article is here:

http://blogs.uoregon.edu/shagyg1w13/turning-points/

A month or so later, she contacted me again for another class project.  This time, she and a couple other students were assigned to create a kickstarter campaign for one of their previous interviewees. They asked me if I was interested, and had any projects brewing that I might want to get funded.  Um, duh!  They created an entire website for the project I proposed, and filmed and edited a video that could be uploaded to kickstarter, whenever I'm ready. Their assignment was only to do a mock, hypothetical project, but said that I can make it "real" when and if I chose.  (Kickstarter is a website that helps people fund their small (or not so small) projects.)  Here's the link to the site:

http://blogs.uoregon.edu/ledeg3spring13/

If you know what I've been excited about lately, you can probably guess what my project proposal was about.  It's to get funding for 10 more murals for Madagascar, done by elementary students here in Oregon.  The pilot project went awesome, so 10 more would be a dream!  I'm heading back to Madagascar soon, and will network with folks while I'm there to start getting the go-ahead for this. Once I'm all set up on that end, I plan on posting their video and content as a Kickstarter campaign to get the funding.  Then, fingers crossed, more health-related murals for Madagascar!!!!!! Yahooo!!!!! Big shout out to these girls who made all this for me. You guys are awesome!!

(**disclaimer: the only mistake I found in the website says that there are no art teachers in K-12 schools in 4j. I know there are still some, and some great ones at that!)

Feeling grateful and super excited for future projects. Yay!!