WHITEFIELD, N.H. (AP) - Connections.
That’s what 10 White Mountains Regional High School students made by reaching out to children from Myanmar who are in refugee camps in Bangladesh after suffering persecution in their homeland.
“The people in Myanmar have suffered a lot,” said WMRHS senior Isabella Gaetjens-Oleson. “They see their homes burned down, they get attacked, they get raped. It’s painful for me personally because just think about the number of children, who, because of where they were born or their religion, aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve and aren’t getting to cultivate their potential. It’s just mind-boggling. It’s terrible.”
Today, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims, a minority group in Myanmar that for decades has faced waves of violence in the nation, are being driven off their land and are fleeing the country to escape violence and armed attacks by the Myanmar Army.
The predominantly Buddhist nation of Myanmar, formerly called Burma, doesn’t recognize the Rohingya as citizens.
Among the refugees are tens of thousands of children, some of whom have lost parents and whole families and have witnessed brutal acts of violence and their villages burned down.
In October, WMRHS was contacted by the nonprofit Memory Project, founded in 2004 with a mission to connect students from the United States and other countries with children from across the world facing extreme challenges from war, violence, poverty, neglect, and loss of parents.
This year, the Rohingya children who fled the Rakhine state of western Myanmar (home to about 1 million Rohingya) will be receiving portraits of themselves recently completed by the WMRHS students and sent to the camp in Bangladesh last week.
The Memory Project organization photographs children in refugee camps around the world and sends the photos to participating high school art teachers for their students to draw or paint the children’s portraits, said WMRHS art teacher Marc Salmin.
“The goal is to let these children know they are important and that someone from around the world took the time to draw them,” he said.
The Myanmar children’s names who will receive the portraits are Hoson, Kaiser, Hamida, Ayatollah, Ayas, Hisbuislam, Jamaleda, Hason, Ayasha and Harey.
The WMRHS students who drew them are in ninth through 12th grades and spent many hours drawing, using colored pencils, as well as watercolor, acrylic and airbrush paint to make each portrait special, said Salmin.
The children receiving them are in the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund refugee camp in Bangladesh. Since 2017, it has supported more than 700,000 Myanmar refugees. About 50 babies are born in the camp each day, said Salmin.
“They are basically Muslim outcasts from Myanmar,” he said. “It’s a growing population, and in need of teachers. As I approached this with the students, we took a look at some of the footage and looked at the universal aspects of trying to do something for somebody in need. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, people need to feel loved and appreciated.”
WMRHS signed up to create 10 portraits. Along with other students in the United States and other countries making them, about 1,000 portraits are being delivered, he said.
The WMRHS students’ experience in art is varied.
Gaetjens-Oleson was doing artwork last year, while Autumn Wheeler, a senior, has been making art since she was 4.
Sophomore Mallory Chessman, who has limited art experience and is a new artist, learned much about the project, both in making art and about the hard lives the children of Myanmar are currently experiencing.
“Artwise, I learned a lot about portraits and furthering my art skills,” she said. “We got their names and got their favorite colors we could incorporate into the project.”
Like the other WMRHS students, Chessman’s portrait took weeks and dozens of hours to complete, and the hardest part for her was getting the proportions right.
She worked with colored pencils and went through several drafts before getting one she liked that she would work on to completion.
Artwork is just one element.
Humanity is the other.
“I also learned a lot about how doing something like this can probably bring a lot of joy to these kids and impact them in a really big way when they live in a place and have a life so rough, and suffer so much and have so many hardships,” said Chessman.
The project has led to a new perspective in life and provided inspiration, she said.
“I hope we can continue this out through the years and do things like this,” said Chessman.
She said she wants to try to go on her school’s service trip next year or find a trip of her own in the summer to visit a country and make a difference.
Of the art component, Wheeler said it was one of her favorite challenges to do because she hadn’t practiced drawing people from real life.
The work, though, was also tinged with heartache.
“It’s sad to see little children go through this, and people in general,” said Wheeler. “Nobody needs to live that way … Children losing their families and homes, nobody should have to go through that in life.”
Like Chessman, Wheeler would like to stay involved in similar projects in the future, and she’d also like to follow up on the children from Myanmar she connected with and ask them how they enjoyed their portraits and how they are doing in life.
Gaetjens-Oleson has gone on two service trips through WMRHS, to the Dominican Republic, where she has seen children suffering there, in a county where third-generation Haitians are not recognized as citizens.
“I want to be able to help as many people as I can and I think this Memory Project gives students who the feel the same way an outlet to do so,” she said.
In Myanmar and other places, it can be a challenge to help, said Gaetjens-Oleson.
“A lot of countries don’t necessarily have the means to help those who are fleeing,” she said. “It’s a difficult situation. It’s a big conflict. It’s difficult to be able to help everyone.”
The desire to help, though, is one that could set her on a life path.
“I’m hoping to study languages and focus on culture and globalization, and hopefully that will set me up for nonprofit work,” said Gaetjens-Oleson. “I would like to do work in Haiti and work with Haitians, and work in the Dominican Republic … It’s a long shot, but I just want people to accept other people. It’s crazy to me that the world is divided in so many different ways.”
Helping bridge that divide is the Memory Project, which since 2004 has created more than 130,000 portraits for children in 47 countries.
“It is an amazing thing to be able to use art to make an impact on someone else’s life,” said Salmin. “The students were excited to make these and even more excited to mail them off to the children.”
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Information from: The Caledonian-Record, http://www.caledonianrecord.com
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