Kids makin' Art

The end of last week brought on a fun combination of youth and art. Despite the exceptionally cold weather, all the kids were excited about their new projects. Thursday afternoon's Alternative School got the Jalurn Suk School students' creative juices flowing with open sessions to draw their own "views of nature." We just wanted everyone to be free to draw things in their communities that they thought were beautiful or interesting. Our usual time was shared with the interns at the local health clinic, so the students only had 30 minutes to create their masterpieces, but things worked out great and everyone got to learn about important public health issues and hygeine along the way. Here are some shots of our young landscape painters:




Though most of the works featured a few standard elements - rice paddies, coconut and banana trees - I have to say that each finished piece was really beautiful. It was in the details that you could see some of our Alternative School activities were rubbing off - paddies with vegetables growing in them (not just rice!) and fish in the ponds. One piece even focused on the technology you can find in our local environment: tractors, harvesters, and even road-pavers (where the local government budgets are headed, apparently). Thursday made me see that these students are really interpreting and conceiving their villages' ecology. After we showed off the art, the students' got to play the water sharing game that teaches kids about AIDS:

Sunday brought together the Kids Love Nature club in Tabthai village for their first day of shooting their "Local Food Film Project." After heading to Bangkok for the "Youth and Local Food" event and getting together a few times to do our usual club activities, we recently decided we would make a video about local food - the foods that village kids can harvest and plant themselves, in their community - and use it in the SFS local food campaign. I handed over the video camera for the day and let everyone get started. Our first day of filming was in the community forest, hunting birds and picking wild herbs and fruits - here's a clip of their burgeoning film genious:

Everyone is jumping on the tractor to ride over to the resevior, look for more edible plants and hunt some birds. We're hoping to have the video done within the next few months, so we can present it at the next "Youth and Local Food" event and then use it in a local food campaign here in Surin. Between drawing landscapes on Thursday and starting our "Local Food Film Project" started on Sunday, we've been able to help facilitate creative expression that is important for kids. Local schools offer very little in terms of art class, so allowing kids to take charge of these small projects hopefully will help them see how rich their local culture and environment is for creativity.