Page 3 - PPPS Pride & Progress-Spring 2017

A Memorable Experience:
Creating Portraits for

Syrian Refugee Children
By Erica Holter, PPHS Senior
In art class I was asked to participate in this thing called
the Memory Project. It was pretty straightforward: paint a
portrait of a Syrian refugee. My art teacher introduced it to
my class but we had no idea what it was about, so she had us What is the Memory Project?
investigate the project ourselves to learn what the purpose of The Memory Project is a charitable nonprofit organization that
the project was. I found out that this was a project much invites art teachers and their students to create portraits for youth
around the world who have faced substantial challenges, such as
greater than what I had previously neglect, abuse, loss of parents, violence, and extreme poverty. We
anticipated. The portraits were a want the portraits to help the children feel valued and important, to
part of a global effort to give chil- know that many people care about their well-being, and to act as
meaningful pieces of personal history in the future. For the art stu-
dren faced with substantial chal- dents, we want this to be an opportunity to creatively practice kind-
lenges (i.e. loss of parents, war, ness and global awareness.
extreme poverty, etc.) a piece of To do this, we receive photos of children and teens from global
charities operating residential homes, schools, and care centers in a
personal artwork to remind them number of different countries every year. We then provide our par-
that they are both valued and ticipating art teachers with full-page color prints as well as digital
important. copies of those photos, along with plastic sleeves to protect the fin-
ished portraits. The art teachers then work with their students to cre-
There was something so simple about this project that ate the portraits, and we hand-deliver them to the kids. We always
made it refreshing. Politics, global affairs, religion, all of these try to have several different portraits for each child,created by differ-
things were left at the door. I had a picture, and all I had to do ent art students and based on different poses. Paw Paw High School
Advanced Art teacher, Sarah Bentley, chose to include this as a class
was paint it. We received a small profile; I received a girl’s project for her students first semester.
name, age, and favorite color. As I began working on the proj-
ect, it was funny because I would run into all of these small different task. I gained a lot more from this project than just
problems. For instance, I was trying to incorporate her painting experience; it was a very eye-opening and informa-
favorite color (red) into my painting by recoloring her hijab tive experience: culturally, artistically, and personally.
from black to red but I started asking myself, “Is it okay to The girl I was assigned to paint was 12, her favorite color
recolor her hijab? I’ve only ever seen black ones… what does was red, and she wore a very dignified and serious expression
Islamic scripture say about stuff like this?” So, I was natural- for her age. I am glad to say that I’ve been almost like her
ly led to do research. It’s strange now to think that a simple partner in this project alongside of her. It was a simple act of
portrait led to me looking into countries and religions and giving: I was given a photograph and she was given a portrait
lifestyles that were so foreign to me. of herself. In a way she gave me a lot more; she gave me
And this is all without even mentioning the artistic skills insight, allowing me to look into the life of someone very dif-
I gained from this project! I’ve painted flowers, I’ve painted ferent from myself. I am very happy to say that I have partici-
spheres and cylinders, but painting a human being was a very pated in the Memory Project.

TECHNOLOGY (Continued from page 2.) ficult. Make passwords fun and you will remember them. For
and on screen codes. That also means adding a fingerprint to example, ieatdirt4lunch, or mom&dadr#1. For younger chil-
access their device. dren use family share programs that force Mom and Dad to
approve and enter passwords.
SAFETY: Watch for apps that your son and daughter wouldn't Parents, do not share your best or favorite password with
be using every hour every day. Example - calculator apps are your children as they could use it and jeopardize your pass-
not all actually calculators, some can be hidden camera rolls word.
- pictures that are hidden and cannot be seen unless a pass- If you have a favorite password and you use it for every-
word is entered in on the app. thing STOP! Instead, keep that password and put the first two
Think twice about allowing location turned on. Does that
app really need to know where my son or daughter is located? letters of the site/tool in the beginning. For example:
Facebook password: faMom&dadr#1. Just put fa in front of the
The camera app is a good example. Do you need to provide the password. Another example for Amazon is amMom&dadr#1.
exact location to whomever the
See the entire presentation by typing goo.gl/FOAHRJ in your
images are shared to?
PP SECURITY: Passwords need to be dif- browsers URL bar. Another great resource is common sense
media. (commonsensemedia.org)
P S PRIDE IN HOW WE TEACH 3