Portrait project connects young artists to kids in refugee camps
Mirella Frost wanted her students at St. Patrick's High School to become global citizens.
That's why Frost, the head of the Ottawa school's creative arts department, got in touch with the Memory Project, a U.S.-based non-profit that gets high school students to sketch portraits of children around the world living in difficult conditions.
"It's important that they feel empathy [and] they can connect to these students in such a way," Frost told CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning earlier this week.
Because of this project, I was connected to a place I've never been to. - Shela Lamug, student
"It's reaching beyond the classroom. It's deep learning at its best."
Through the Memory Project, Frost's art club students were connected with young boys and girls attending school at refugee camps in Afghanistan.
Using their photographs as a reference, the St. Patrick's students carefully sketched portraits of the children in Afghanistan. They then shipped the portraits overseas.
'A way to connect'
Earlier this month, the St. Patrick's students watched a video of their portrait subjects beaming as they received the drawings.
"I feel like I made someone happy by drawing him, and I hope that he also becomes inspired and that he becomes passionate and takes art someday," said 17-year-old Shela Lamug, who sketched a 12-year-old boy named Abdul.
"Because of this project, I was connected to a place I've never been to. It was, like, a way to connect with children across the world who are suffering."
Nathan O'Hare sketched a portrait of a young girl wearing a hijab decorated with jewels and flowers.
O'Hare said what he found most fascinating about the project was how his art could bring joy to someone from a completely different background, living on the opposite side of the world.
"They know nothing about me other than, like, what I sent in return," he said. "I think that's probably the craziest part for me."
'So proud'
In all, 10 of the art club students took part in the Memory Project initiative this year, said Frost, who learned about it through a niece attending school in Florida.
It's not the first time she's organized this initiative: two years ago, her students sketched students living in difficult conditions in Syria.
"I want them to connect to students across the globe, to these children who [are often] suffering," Frost said.
"It makes me so proud that they wanted to participate in this. It's just an extremely rewarding project."
