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!!!

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 ;)