Tag: children

gardening program and the art + botany lab

October 22, 2013November 21, 2013 Melissa Schilling Urban Agriculture

The 2014 Project HOPE Art Gardening Class will take place each Saturday at the Project HOPE Art Center at Haiti Communitere from 8am-11am.
The goal of the class is to teach fundamentals of gardening to 12 students and one class Supervisor so they may return to their neighborhoods and spread knowledge about urban agronomy. We want to prepare each student to grow their own food at home.

For our first foray, we’ve rounded up 12 students from a variety of neighborhoods, backgrounds, education levels and ages to come together and learn a skill that will help them feed their families and communities.

Class Instructor: TBD/Daniel Tillias
Class Supervisor: Luc Winter

Week 1-4: Basics of Gardening and Mapping Out Your Garden; Basic Husbandry (Rabbit Keeping)
Week 5-9: Soil Health: Composting and Vermicomposting; Moringa Trees and Soil Erosion
Week 10-14: Urban Gardening: Growing Vegetables in Containers
Week 15-19: Harvesting and Seed Saving
Week 20-24: Cooking with Moringa, Vegetables, Fruits and Herbs
Week 25-29: Aquaponics: Using Tilapia Fish
Week 30-32: MultiCropping and MonoCropping

Measuring Success: Each student in the class will keep a journal. In it they will be asked to write down notes, ideas, recipes and activities. We will invite local artists to attend the class and help the students learn botanical drawing. The students will take a field trip to the the Jaden Tap Tap Garden in Cite Soleil to see a working garden. At the end of the class, each student will be given seeds and asked to start their own mini-garden at home.

Student journal entries will be combined to create a gardening handbook.

Download our 2012 Gardening HandBook, There Grows The Neighborhood here.

Class Supervisor Luc Winter will use his knowledge from the class to start his own community garden at his school in Bwa Nef in Cite Soleil.

Our gardening class will run from March, 2014 – November 2014 on Saturdays at the Project HOPE Art Center. For the finale of the class, each student will be given seeds and a class generated gardening handbook to create their own mini container garden at home.

The young students in the class range across five neighborhoods and span educational, income and resource levels. They are 12 to 16 years old. All incredibly motivated to learn Urban Agronomy.

Meet our Students (coming soon!)

8th girls only English class

October 10, 2013October 10, 2013 fatatis English Class 2013, Girls Only English Class 2013/14, Haitian Culture/Language

For the 8th class, they was 3 absent students.

HERARD Dachemine, HERARD Blondine, HERARD Orlie Mariotte.

Bengie was teach on the poeme ( The black flower )
To wear
clothes
Colors

Bwat Aliminyom

April 4, 2013April 4, 2013 Melissa Schilling Art Projects, Partners

Bwat Aliminyom means Aluminum Cans, in Kreyòl.

We are always looking for ways to create fun, whimsy and art from unwanted discarded materials. So when Delphine Bedu spied these cans on a pier in Key West, Florida all of us sat up and took notice.

As we speak, our home team artists at the Project HOPE Art Center at HC, Racine Polycarpe, Claudel Casseus and Romel Jean Pierre are devising a class around upcycling cans into planes, boats and cars. On the last Sunday in April 2013, 10 children from local orphanages will be on site at our art center creating their dream vehicle in a class led by Racine and Claudel.

They will compete in a Can Race and we will be awarding tools and art supplies to the winner of the race.

The race will be captured as the first assignment by the students in our new photography class. Stay tuned for the results. We will be sure to post instructions and best practices in early summer so you may host your own Can Race.

If you’d like to get involved, we are ALWAYS accepting donations to stay afloat. In fact we need to raise $1,000 to make this Can Race happen.
Click here: http://projecthopeart.org/fundraising-and-philanthropy/

PhotoPhilanthropy Visual Essay Submission, 2012

October 21, 2012October 21, 2012 Melissa Schilling Art Projects, Join the Team, Visual Storytelling

Bleak Landscapes and Grim Living Conditions meet your arch nemesi:
Vibrant Color, Laughter and Creativity.
This photo essay follows a group of American artists through the slums of Port au Prince and into schools, hospitals and orphanages. In their war against despair the best weapon of choice is intentional whimsy and purposeful joy.

[slideshow]

Project HOPE Art is comprised of a colorful cast of characters that appeal to my inner child. They work fervently to heal and inspire the children around them. I choose to photograph this organization’s journey into the Third World because I love their efforts, compassion and artful endeavors. They sing. They dance. They laugh. They create beauty from trash. They insert hope into eyes. Inspiring people to not give up or give in. But to laugh and appreciate what is and to make it through another day.

All of my photographs are used to populate the Project HOPE Art web media to tell stories of art upcycling, vermicomposting and dance workshops. This year I am working on my first illustrated Moringa Tree gardening and cookbook. This book will contain upcycled art and agroecology lesson plans, Creole recipes and actual Moringa seeds so each child who receives the book will have a grasp on nutrition, soil cycles and healthy eating. Science and Art really go hand in hand.

Several things are required to stay alive: water, food and shelter. Project HOPE Art provides the things necessary to be ALIVE: laughter, joy, ideas, color and vibrancy.

During my first trip to Haiti, in January 2010, I captured more than 5,000 images for Project HOPE Art. Together we turned those images into a book about PHA’s programming.

Now we have decided to collaborate together on a gardening cookbook, entitled “There Grows The Neighborhood.” The book’s first edition will travel down to Haiti in January 2013 filled with children’s recipes, food paintings and gardening photographs.

I will work on a second edition of the book, with a professional illustrator, to be released in January 2014. This edition of the book will encompass The Growing Gardens Guide, Vegetable Planting Guide and Container Garden Activity List — but also include a handwritten story accompanied by characters like Mardochee Le Magique Moringa and her best friend Herbie the Worm.

Through Project HOPE Art’s Visiting Artist Program and local collaboration with Haiti NPO – Haiti Communitere, I will also be traveling to Port au Prince to photograph a collection of artistic projects each quarter of 2013. My plan is to photograph alongside Project HOPE Art for as long as they will tolerate my intrusive camera lens.

Thymus vulgaris

July 30, 2012 Melissa Schilling Thank Yous

We’d like to thank Cleanwell for providing us with hand sanitizer on each and every trip to Haiti. We are looking forward to expanding our programming into Rwanda and bringing more alcohol-free hand sanitizer with us. Thymus vulgaris has been used as an antiseptic for thousands of years in Roman, Greek, and Indian (Ayurvedic) medicine.

In medieval times, the plant symbolized courage, and to keep up their spirits, knights departing for the Crusades received scarves embroidered with a sprig of thyme from their ladies. There was a popular belief, too, that a leaf tea prevented nightmares, while another held that tea made of thyme and other herbs enabled one to see nymphs and fairies. Herbalists of the Middle Ages regarded thyme as a stimulant and antispasmodic, and recommended sleeping on thyme and inhaling it as a remedy for melancholy.

And we believe that Thymus vulgaris, the main cleansing ingrediant in Cleanwell helps all of our children stay fresh, alert and nightmare free. Contracting infectious disease in the developing world ain’t no picnic.

THANK YOU CLEANWELL.