Category Archives: Arts Works

June 11, 2012 · 1:06 pm

Article 4: Sharing the Protection of Rights

This group of girls produced a beautiful print for the exhibition about how communities can protect children’s rights. It shows a women who left her house one morning to attend a meeting in the village about the UNCRC. She was late attending and on her way she met two young children already on their way home. They were able to answer of the women’s questions and therefore shared their communities responsibility to implement their rights and help raise awareness of their importance. A really simple yet stunning print which shows clearly how communities and children can work together, this will look great in their class room!

Witness Victoria Honorata Gertrudi

Article 4 (Protection of rights): Governments have a responsibility to take all available measures to make sure children’s rights are respected, protected and fulfilled. When countries ratify the Convention, they agree to review their laws relating to children. This involves assessing their social services, legal, health and educational systems, as well as levels of funding for these services. Governments are then obliged to take all necessary steps to ensure that the minimum standards set by the Convention in these areas are being met. They must help families protect children’s rights and create an environment where they can grow and reach their potential.

Heres what Witness, Honorata, Victoria and Gertrudi thought about how responsibility could be taken…

To prepare meetings for participatory information sharing about rights. To share and learn together so that rights can be followed
Governments to pass each house to make sure rights are followed and protection is there
Governments to write letters to communities about rights to raise awareness
Parents to go to child rights meetings
Police to make sure that rights are followed by parents and children

Fairtrade and Child Labour (Article 32)

In the last few weeks of Making Art, Making Me, Singachini continued working on their child rights illustrations. Each group focused on a particular Protection Right and discussed in groups what they mean, here is what the first group thought…

Article 32 (Child Labour): The Government should protect children from work that is dangerous of might harm their health or their education

We as children should refuse to do works above our age
We shouldn’t be asked to carry big bunches of bananas to sell when we should be going to school
Let us refuse to work on coffee plantations for low wages
We shouldn’t be taken away from school for work in town as house girls or boys. Parents should refuse this and stop allowing people to take us away
Parents shouldn’t allow us to go and graze goats .

The groups, all from local villages in Kibosho, then took their ideas and turned them into storyboards. These all gave touching and personal accounts of how they, their community and the government can take responsibility for protecting them by illustrating cases where rights are neglected.

In this drawing the young girl has gone out to work on the coffee plantation. She is working a long day in the hot sun for a low wage. A boy from Standard 7 comes along to the plantation and adivces her on her rights, he tells her that children should not go to work on the (named and fairtrade) coffee estate and should be going to school instead to get a good education. The child then stops picking coffee and goes back to school.

Here is the first final print! These were shown at the exhibition, displayed at school and will be travelling to London to help raise awareness about childrens rights and responsibilities.

It is also interesting to note that the named coffee plantation is well know and registered as Fair Trade –

The Fairtrade standards for producer organizations prohibit child labour – work that is hazardous, exploitive or that undermines a child’s education or its emotional and physical health. We follow the ILO Conventions, including Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, and our audits check compliance against this. Qualified auditors inspect Fairtrade producer organizations on a regular basis to monitor for child labour

We look forward to consulting Fairtrade about this artwork and company when we return to the UK.

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Filed under Arts Works, The Millenium Development Goals (MDG)

April 5, 2012 · 8:40 am

Putting Ideas into Pots

Last week at Kibo the groups got creative with their thoughts about Jumuiya (East African Communities)

Each of the groups moulded and decorated their pots with their ideas and then spoke individually about their features. We were very sorry to see that our clay making has yet to be refined, and sadly these wont be suitable for firing. Zulpha has informed us that her family village knows the secret to African Pottery, so perhaps they can help us next time!

Here’s a sample of their key community creations!

Two faces – to show the importance of working together
A mobile phone – because lets face it, we’d be lost without them!
Trees – for shade and environmental protection
Transport – Cars, Dala Dala, Busses
UMEME!! (Electricity) The quintessential characteristic of the city!

Kibo school will be building on these ideas for the forthcoming Making Art, Making Me exhbition in May. The invitations and press release are being written this week and all of us here at MME and Childreach International are extremely excited about showcasing this projects achievements to our Guest of Honour, the Kilimanjaro Regional Education Officer of Tanzania.

Making Prints: Mgungani

This week we have been very resourceful making bright colourful prints from lino flooring. All of the students created wonderful pictures which depict important aspects of their lives, things that have influenced their identiy and made them, them. Take a look at our colourful inspirations below.