Why Choose Art?

One of the most powerful stories of inspiration for this mission came from the diary of Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin, who was amongst the first British soldiers to liberate the concentration camp, Bergen-Belsen in 1945.

“It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived, though it may have no connection, that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived. This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don’t know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for those internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post-mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tattooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity.”

As we search for a way to keep them fed, we can give these kids a reason to laugh like children, to play like children, and to dance.

Rather than lipstick, help us source paints, journals, copper wire, pencils, scissors, feathers, glitter and charcoal. Support us in our current Indieagogo Campaign: http://www.indiegogo.com/rainbowstohaiti