ARTSCO Update

I have been elected as the president of ARTSCO! Two weeks ago we met as a club and carried out our elections. Unfortunately, I was the only one actually running for the position, but I’m confident that I can do a really good job. My vice president will be elected at the start of next year.

I'm really passionate about what ARTSCO is trying to promote within the community, as I feel like we need to explore more unorthodox ways of executing service. I am personally very passionate about the arts, and I was really disappointed that I couldn't do HL visual arts for my IB. I'm really happy that I'll have a chance to make change through something that I love, and I feel that it's my enthusiasm that will help me in this position. I've also spent 2 years in ARTSCO observing the leaders and the events that we can carry out, and I think that I've learnt from this time in the club. 

ARTSCO this year has been rather disconnected - I feel like the members of the group never really got a chance to connect with one another. Furthermore, our largest event (the talent show) was never carried out because of the events of Westgate earlier this year. We've done a few small events, such as face painting and murals, but there hasn't really been anything of much significance carried out. I hope that in my leadership position I can unify the club, make it more fun and make noticeable contributions to our community. I recognise that it will be difficult to develop the club, especially due to its reputation this year, but I'm excited to give it a try. 

The teacher that will be helping me run ARTSCO is Mr Nicholas, the elementary art teacher. I've spoken to him a couple of times before and he seems really nice, I feel that we'll be able to collaborate well. I really want to use ARTSCO to help the animals of Nairobi, as there aren't many clubs that focus on animal welfare. However, we will try to branch out over all aspects of the community.

I have a few ideas thus far as to what we can do next year:

 - portraits of the dogs at KSPCA and then an art show?

- The talent show (naturally)

- Mural painting

- Design of new tshirts 

- More teambuilding events - fun stuff for the club to do

- Painting schools?

- tshirt painting?

[etc]

Fundraisers: bake sales, face painting, art shows, talent show, etc

I want to take new approaches to service in ARTSCO, not just carrying out the generic events we've being doing for the past few years. I learnt at round square that service should be WITH people, not just giving over items (etc). It needs to be sustainable, and you must develop connections. Merely going to paint a school, or doing a mural for ISK doesn't fulfil the requirements of service. I want to discover some sort of sustainable project that we can work on throughout next year. 

I'm going to be in charge of ARTSCO for the last few weeks of school, as Yumiko and Cora are doing their exams. I'm not sure how much we can do in that time, especially with semester exams coming up, but I'll try to keep everything organised (especially with regards to the murals).