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Kabira International School Summer Camp (July 2005)

There was a wonderful article about this Peace Tiles party in Uganda's daily New Vision that mentions Life in Africa and Kiwanuka and the Global Peace Tiles project. As a result of this workshop, the Ugandan National Museum has adopted a Peace Tiles activity for Northern Uganda into the summer camp curriculum they will be offering to pupils during the next term break.

The kids made their tiles as a mural for Noah's Ark night commuter center after watching the film Invisible Children.

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The whole, completed mural is still at the WE Center, awaiting delivery on 1 October.

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LiA/Onet mural for the WE Center (July - Sept 05)

At the chicago conference in July, Onet members worked together to produce 2 Peace Tiles murals - one for the Sugar Theater in LA, and one for the WE Center in Uganda.

With 15 Onet made tiles as a start in the middle, Life in Africa members held a Peace Tiles Party today at the WE Center to create a frame of tiles with a brown background around the (gold background) Onet community tiles. Each member pitched in enough to cover materials, and to pay for a Peace Tiles party for 20 recently returned LRA child soldiers on October 2, at the Gusco reception center in Gulu.

This mural is - as arranged by the group - going to hang on the back wall in the internet4change lab at the WE Center. Considering that our members are now joining Onet en-masse, the symbolic timing of this activity couldn't have been better.

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Special Thanks to everyone at Onet who participated in creating the central part of this masterpiece - especially to Meron who brought them to Chicago with such a great background all the way from BC Canada, and Evonne who lugged it all the way back to LA for me! We love it!

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Gulu to Darfur (July 2005)

Just so's we have 'em all in one place... these tiles created by the Charity for Peace Foundation in July 2005 are now on their way with Gabriel Stauring to children in Darfur. More on that project here: http://www.omidyar.net/group/peacetiles/news/8/

this is all so outstanding and wonderful to see christina! congratulations on creating a fast moving brushfire of peace in northern uganda! let me know if i can be of any assistance. one thing i'd like to do is copy, and in some cases mildly edit, some of this info onto peacetiles.net, in an area specifically for conflict. is that okay? the other new space that will evolve is street children.

thanks ever, and kudos!

Certainly ok lars :)

Christina, thanks for sharing this concept. I think it's great and a wonderful way to connect people from different places and backgrounds with each other. Have you ever created a power point presentation that could be used on the internet to descibe the Peace Tiles concept, or to show how other groups might connect with each other, or with you through this project?

In the youth program I lead in Chicago, youth and volunteers have been creating art in weekly workshops. Their art will be shown and sold at a festival to be held in Chicago on Oct. 7th. Once the volunteers are past this event, I'll encourage them to take another look at the Peace Tiles project. There are several ways we might get our teens/volunteers involved over the course of a year. I just need to motivate one of the volunteer leaders to want to adopt the project.

On Nov. 17 and 18 I'll be hosting another Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conference. I'll do another in May 2006. The reason I mention the ppt is that I feel you could participate in internet versions of my conference and other conferences, to demonstrate the Peace Tiles project and encourage others to join. Doing this via the Internet would be far less expensive than flying around the world.

If anyone from Chicago or the Midwest would want to try to integrate the Peace Tiles concept into the Tutor/Mentor Conferences, and is willing to volunteer time and leadership, I'd be interested in speaking to you.

Dan

hi dan! folks can also learn about peace tiles, and connect with others, at least those involved in the world AIDS Day activities, at http://www.peacetiles.net.

its kind of neat christina found a niche in uganda working with kids at parties: the mural that she received in may/june was painted by a 2-year old and two 3-year olds!

good luck with the conference -- sounds like you guys do great work!

The photos and stories are wonderful...

Christina,

Thanks for sharing all these pics. You are inspiring!!!

Love 'ya lots

:D

The photos and stories are wonderful...

Thank you Julie...

Peace Tiles workshop

Noah's Ark night commuter center, Gulu

Workshop topic: Hurricane Katrina

Early in the morning on 2 October 2005, Life in Africa facilitated a Peace Tiles workshop for Noah's Ark night commuter center in Gulu.

First, some children received & displayed a mural received as a gift to the center from children at Kabira International School in Kampala.

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There is a classroom block at the center where we worked on making new tiles together.

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We talked to the children about hurricane Katrina, the devastation, the displaced people. They learned a lot and asked plenty of questions for about 45 minutes. Then they created their tiles. After the tiles we did photos and exit interviews.

They loved the whole experience - as usual. Note the proud smiles!

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The final result! This mural awaits a home in a New Orleans shelter for the displaced that Rose Vines is helping us identify.

BEAUTIFUL! I particularly like the full mural -- the individual tiles fit together so organically.

absolutely lovely, christina! i a continue to be blown away by your capacity to take this Peace Tiles initiative so much farther than I can right now, and I completely appreciate the trail you are blazing! Absolutely incredible, inspiring. Hugs for all the little ones, and deepest thanks (and a hug too!) to you and your amazing crew.

let me know if you would like follow-up on the mural siting as well. a friend of mine is a graphic facilitator (draws what she hears from groups) with deep ties to the region. Check out what she wrote in an email:

"Healing function of art: Lars, i'm excited about your tiles project. i found the white-sheets set up around ground zero after 9/11 very healing... I wonder what it would take to put the appropriate version in place in the Gulf Coast... I would be v. interested in helping to set up something like that, and could likely mobilize/train a team of artists and graphics people to man some of those. There is a strong artist culture across the coast (another one of my aunts is an award-winning naturalist/painter in Gulf Port). And am confident art supplies would be easy to get donated as well. RSVP your thoughts."

Ya know Lars - if your friend thinks she can find a home for this Mural, I don't think Rose would be upset.... could be a starting point for something.

Glad you like them!

Peace Tiles Workshop

Gusco Peace Center, Gulu

Workshop Topic: building peace

The original plan was to auction the tiles made on 2 October 2005 by former abductees recently returned from the LRA rebel ranks, to finance some kind of vocational training program for them.

In the end, for a number of reasons, we've decided to sell Peace Tiles gift items with some of these images on them instead. We plan to return the original tiles to hang on display at the Gusco Peace Center, as a welcome for the abducted children who find their way there. We hope to build on this mural by adding more peace tiles to it over time.

The money raised from selling Peace Tiles gift items from this collection will be used to provide a small craft supply fund. Several of the children asked for this specifically. They are terribly bored.

When the army finds rebel hideouts or ambushes them in the bush, they bring the children to Gusco to wait while their families are found. All of their basic needs are met, but there just isn't anything to do there. Most children stay from 3 weeks to 3 months. sometimes a year or more...

We hope the new craft supplies fund will help them pass the time, at least a bit. We've also discussed possibly selling some of the things some of them might make. It would be a nice way to help them with some school supplies.

I came across something from Kevin Sites hotzone blog last week that made me understand the request from the kids for something to kill the boredom at a deeper level:

The LRA held 15-year-old Deo for only two months. It was a hard time -- and it shows.

He says in that time he was beaten almost constantly. He is a like a Swiss Army knife of nervous tics. His face, hands and feet are all constantly moving, shifting, rearranging invisible air molecules.

He feels more peaceful when he has something in his hands. A smile spreads across his face as he beats the drums outside one of the center's grass huts.

So, craft supplies... and hopefully more peace tiles it is!

This is so great! Thanks for sharing....

This is bringing joy to everyone who experiences it and even sees it on line. What mysterious creatures we are. Thank you Christina and Lars and everyone.

I can see some of these murals being recreated on porcelain tile and sold as artwork at ned, not that the wooden murals wouldn't sell. But porcelain could be inlaid right into someone's wall. We have a number of inlaid tile murals at my house, one in the shower/bath.

barbara spalding said:

porcelain could be inlaid right into someone's wall.

Wow - love that idea Barbara!

On these framed tiles we're already selling I left a white border around the printed area so the tiles could "breath" (something Lars taught me!) I hadn't thought at all about mounting them into a wall. It's also possible to have the whole tile covered with the image. Don't see why it couldn't work in a kitchen, but I wonder if it would be shower proof.

Kabira International School Uganda secondary students (21 oct 2005)

Peace Tiles for World AIDS Day 2005

These are the 12 tiles we sent to contribute to the WAD 2005 global murals.

Here's a few highlights from the workshop

The workshop at the international school was a slightly different experience than the workshops we have done in Gulu! In Gulu the children have benches and the floor... this school has an amazingly well equipped art room.

The kids were much more knowledgeable already about the materials they were working with, so they knew what to do to speed up the process. We noticed that they focused on the end art product more, whereas most of the kids we work with in Gulu focus more on the process of learning how to paint, cut and stick.

The tiles that weren't sent to the global muralsd will form a gift mural to a local HIV/AIDS clinic in Entebbe (Mildmay). A peacetiles workshop is planned there for 22 November.

There's a whole bunch more pictures from the workshop over here: http://lifeinafrica.com/gallery/peacetiles/kisu/wad05

Best of luck with your next workshop and thanks again for sharing pictures from all of your parties and peacetile experiences! Do you have these photos available in larger format or should I borrow photos from here?

christina, these are all wonderful -- you are on fire! i received some of these today in the post, in fact! i have mounted a few of them on 1/2 plywood today, and began to "curate" the murals with a friend who is an architect -- let me tell you, that was a really fun time! thank you so much for being a part of this WAD journey, and bringing more students along too!

Evonne, the originals from the WAD workshop are linked from thumbnails over here http://lifeinafrica.com/gallery/peacetiles/kisu/wad05

If there are any others you'd like, let me know and I can dig out the originals for you.

Lars, whew! so glad you got them in time! I can only imagine how much fun it will be to curate the global murals now. A well deserved pleasure for you to indulge in :) Can't wait to see the finished products!

btw - can you point me to info about the destinations for the globa murals again? We're doing a presentation for the Kabira kids on Mon. morning and would love to be able to give them details.

not sure why this thread has been dead for so long... thinking I may revive it :)

nice :) what can i do to help connect the children involved in your workshops to those starting to get active here in the US? have you tried uploading one or more tiles at http://www.peacetiles.net? i'd love to be able to introduce them and their teachers to you via the peacetiles network...!