MEGAN ON THE RUN

Global Art Project

Hello everyone. I apologize for not writing sooner. I was busy and . . . lazy! Things are going really well here and I am keeping busy. I am still working at the youth center, women’s center and preschool. I love working at the preschool and have rearranged my schedule so I can spend more time with them. They are so refreshing and energizing.
We are currently working on a project called "Global Art Project" for peace. The association is based in the United States, but has participants from all over the world. The objective is to create a work of art expressing your vision of Global Unity to exchange with a person in another part of the world. I am doing this project with my preschool students in March and we are the first group to participate from Morocco. I have four classes, so we will be doing four different paintings and exchanging them with four different groups in the United States. Each painting will express their ideas of peace, love and friendship. In April, we will then hold an exhibition to display our art and finally, exchange it with our American partners.
To get my students thinking about all these issues, we participated in another project with the same association called "Let’s All Join Hands". This project encourages the celebration of diversity and peace. I felt this was an excellent stepping stone for the art project. My students each traced and cut out their hand while we discussed the above topics. They then wrote their name, country, and personal definition of peace on their hand (in their native script). I am mailing the hands to the association where they will join thousands of other hands from around the world.
Recently, the director from Global Art Project wrote me saying she has so many inspiring hands that she wants to create a book, The Handbook for Peace. However, she didn’t have any hands with Arabic so she is excited to include my students paper hands in her book.
I was so proud of my students during our discussion regarding peace. They are so young, but yet so insightful. Their answers were simple and genuine.
"Peace is when we are not fighting." -Youssef Elykiri
"Peace is love, friendship and helping one another. Also, it is friendship between friends and the world."- Nasr Abo Dayya
"Peace is having good relationships, cooperating and everyone has the same face." - Maha Elkoche
(He was trying to say that we are all equal no matter where we are from. We all have a nose, eyes, etc).
"Peace is when I love my mom and dad." -Imade Dana
"Love and Peace is working together." - Yousera Amar
"Peace is helping one another and love." -Ali Labyad
"Peace is love and respect." -Fatima Ben Driss
"Peace is no war and love and helping others." -Yassine Ahabechane
"Peace and tolerance in the world." -Fatima Zaher Elhasnaoui
My co-teacher is Moroccan, so the session was conducted in Arabic and they wrote on their paper hands in Arabic. I roughly translated the hands into English. However, it is a bit difficult to translate because there are words in Arabic that don’t translate into English.
I am digitally documenting the art project and will keep you all posted. I encourage you to check out the Global Art Project website at www.globalartproject.org.
Until next time . . .

posted by MeganontheRun @ 12:32 PM