This year, nine South High School Visual
Artists participated in the 2016 Memory Project. The Memory Project is a nonprofit organization that
invites art teachers and their students to create portraits for youth
around the world who have faced substantial challenges, such as neglect, abuse,
loss of parents, and extreme poverty.
The portraits to help the children feel valued
and important, to know that many people care about their well being, and to act
as meaningful pieces of personal history in the future. For the art students,
we want this to be an opportunity to creatively practice kindness and global
awareness.
Participating art teachers are provided with with
full-page color prints as well as digital copies of those photos, along
with plastic sleeves to protect the finished portraits. The art
teachers then work with their students to create the portraits, and
we hand-deliver them to the kids (we have several different art students
create portraits for each child based on several different poses).
Since 2004 the Memory Project has created more than 80,000 portraits for
children in 35 countries.
Thanks to mentor teachers Robyn Bican and Katherine O'Truk for supporting this learning initiative.
