Images of Hope
Elementary students at Iolani School paint a Hawaiian paradise on a tent that will soon serve as a hale for refugees in Darfur. Those are just some of the questions Iolani Schools art teacher Cheri Keefer has had to figure out the answers to in the past few weeks.
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How do you tell a 5-year-old about genocide? Or make a group of innocent third-graders understand that there are kids just like them living without food, water or a place to call home?
Those are just some of the questions Iolani Schools art teacher Cheri Keefer has had to figure out the answers to in the past few weeks.
Keefer decided to join the recently launched Tents of Hope project that transforms refugee tents into unique works of art. Take a blank canvas, give the kids some brushes and let the paint fly. Sounds like the perfect fit, right?
But Keefer says that introducing 26 classes of kindergartners up through sixth-graders to the reason behind the masterpiece was a little more touch-and-go.
“It’s hard for them to understand what’s going on,” she says. “It just upsets them that people are killed. They don’t like that at all. But I tell them the tents we’re making for them will be a safe haven, I said like your bedroom in your house when you need to kind of be alone and you feel comfortable and safe. Then this tent is going to make the people have a safe place to go.
“When we first got the tent, I took them all into the tent and they all couldn’t believe how small it was. I said, think of your own bedroom. Everything you own, it wouldn’t fit in here, plus you’re sleeping on the floor. No electricity; you couldn’t play those computer games, watch TV, anything like that. No running water, no bathroom, no food ...”
Those lessons from inside the tent must really be making an impact. What was given to the school as a drab, white piece of canvas has been transformed into a thatched hut complete with Hawaiian mainstays - mynah birds, geckos, rainbows, palm trees and boys and girls playing, smiling and sending messages of aloha. Circling the outside of the home are flowers, pua, made from the hand-prints of the younger students, and a dove flies above the entrance flap.
Even the inside of the tent is painted a cheery reflection of what is pictured outside, a mistake Keefer said was made because the tent was initially turned inside out. But, she adds, this mistake has turned out to be another learning experience.
“When they work like this, it stays in their memories as they get older. (in a child’s voice) ‘Oh yeah, I remember doing that, it was for Africa!‘So it isn’t like they’ll forget tomorrow like if they were doing a small drawing on a piece of paper,” she says, adding that all 500 students will sign their first names and leave a message on the inside mural.
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As one group of artists rush off to recess, a new bunch of bouncing students move in to take over where the previous ones left off. After a quick review of where the tent is headed and what is happening in Africa, they head out to the lanai to get to work. It is quite a sight to see as the tent takes on a new life with each age group. And it is quite exciting to witness how, dare I say, maturely these youths empathize with strangers half a world away.
“It kinda makes us feel fortunate for how we have so much space, like three times as much space as some people have,” says 12-year-old Aaron Yonamine.
Sixth-grade classmate Kahler Suzuki chimes in,“I find that all these things we’ve painted are unique in their own way and they represent what we have here, and we can bring that joy to Africa.”
Now, I’ll admit, this reporter didn’t know Darfur was in Sudan, which is in Africa, until she started researching this article. Like many 20-something (or, gulp, noage specified) Americans, I’m a little fuzzy about my geography and world news. I’m learning - ironically more so now that I’m out of school - but this ignorance-is-bliss attitude cannot work in a time when an alleged government-back militia group is in a six-year conflict with various rebel groups, leaving unimaginable numbers of civilians either displaced (an estimated 2.5 million) or dead (most conservative estimates count roughly 300,000, but the former United Nations undersecretary-general puts the tally at no less than 400,000) from the violence and disease.
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Which is exactly why, when after an anonymous local philanthropist approached Iolani last year to pitch getting involved with the Hawaii Coalition for Darfur, educator Lisa Ritts immediately signed up her contemporary issues class. Through a fundraiser that included a free concert and T-shirt sale, they were able to raise more than $4,500 for the Dollars for Darfur National School Challenge.
When the donor returned this year with a gift of $500 for the kit, which included the tent, PVC frame, rope and stakes, Keefer decided to add to the mural that is peace.
“I just knew it would be a good project for this school,” states Keefer, who has taken two trips to Africa and seen the living conditions there firsthand. “I asked them (her students) if this would be a cause or something they’d be interested in, and of course they’re always willing to do it. There’s no ill feelings for helping others.”
Iolani’s tent will join 49 others from groups across the country Nov. 7 to 9 at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Deemed the “Gathering of the Tents,” this marks the culmination of a year-long processes to bring awareness and support for the people who have fled to displacement camps in Darfur or refugee camps in neighboring Chad and the Central African Republic.
After the event, participants have the option to ship their tents to these makeshift communities through the assistance of Darfur Peace and Development, or to bring the tents back to their own communities to be used as focal points of activism. For Keefer and her students, there was no other option. Their tent, the sole one from Hawaii, should become a shelter for families until they can return to their own communities.
“Tents of Hope was made to make people aware of what’s going on in Africa. This is how it makes me feel,” she says, pulling out a scrap piece of paper. “‘Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breaths away.’ And standing out here to watch my students work and know why they’re doing it ... The tent will be an expression of our love and hope that they do get to go back home soon.”
Or, as 11-year-old Kahler casually puts it, as though there is no other appropriate response to give, “They’ll know it’s from the heart, that we care about others.”
Seems Keefer has found her answers after all.
If you have any questions regarding background information and updates on the conflict in Darfur, or if you’d like to answer the call for help, visit www.savedarfur.org or www.tentsofhope.org
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