KCCL ARTSCO Trip

Today (April 24th, 2013) I went to KCCL for ARTSCO. KCCL is a school that takes in children with mental disabilities. We were going to paint their walls for them, which I was very excited about (as I love art).
The bus ride there was quite long, and there were only four people on the trip. When we arrived I was surprised at how good the facilities at the school were (the buildings were clean and well built, and there was a playground and basketball court etc). We went inside and got out all of our painting supplies, traipsing our way over to a large courtyard (that a number of students were seated on benches in, working on making necklaces) with white walls.
After we had set up our equipment we went over to the kids and asked them what they would like us to paint, most of them suggested butterflies and flowers but there was already a large mural with this on it. I suggested that we do something related to saving the earth - as it is earth week. Everyone liked this idea, and so we planned to paint someone holding the world.

Nidhi and I did the outline of the globe and began to paint, while the two boys helped by mixing colours for us and washing paintbrushes (at one point one of them commented that: "art is for girls"!). After we had finished the blue background, we painted the green continents on top. Next came the hands holding the earth, and then the details - fish in the ocean, trees and animals on the continents, etc.

After we were done with the picture we finished up by outlining the world in black, and writing (around the globe): 'SAVE OUR WORLD'.

I had a lot of fun doing this, it made me realise how fortunate I am to be so healthy and privileged, and what bravery is needed to believe in yourself and carry on when everyone treats and looks at you differently. I admired the children at KCCL for their strength - they all had wide smiles on their faces and were enthusiastic despite their situation. I think that this centre is doing something wonderful by allowing the dreams of these children to become reality, guiding them through life.

I think that I connected with the other members of ARTSCO that came on this trip, we all laughed and had fun together. I feel that our mural was very well planned out, for instead of drawing something simple and cliche (like butterflies) we painted a picture that displayed an important message and spread awareness about the current situation in our world.
I love helping people through art, because it's both entertaining and rewarding. I cannot wait to go on another KCCL trip, especially when they're more people present and I can speak to the children a little more.

OVC Visit

On the 13th of April I went to visit the OVC children who live just down the road from ISK. I found this shocking, every day we go to school and take what we have for granted, while almost 200 meters away are a group of children who would give anything to be in our places.

We met at the high school parking lot at 9:30 and then walked down to the OVC together.When we arrived at the site we all stood in a large circle holding hands, the head of the OVC coming forward and asking us if we had any dances or songs that we would like to perform before we began. Three OVC boys came up and sang a lovely song for us, and then various people from ISK went up and did small simple games (like head-shoulders-knees-and-toes, and Simon says, etc). The kids all enjoyed this a lot, but soon enough the circle was breaking up and we were heading to our various activities (the options were soccer, drawing and reading).

OVC Children

I decided to do drawing, and I sat in a small room looking out on the field with around fifteen OVC children and five ISK students. Each child had a drawing book, and a friend and I played tic-tac-toe, hangman and other games with the girls sitting opposite us. This went on for almost three hours, and by the time we were finished their books were almost filled completely with vivid drawings.

We ended the trip with a prayer, carried out by a willing ISK student, and then traipsed our way back to the high school.

I think that this OVC trip shocked me even more into reality. I can't believe that everyday we groan and grumble about going to school and doing our homework, etc, when we should treasure the opportunities that have been given to us, and do our best to help those in need.
These children were so sweet and kind, I look forward to seeing them all again in August.