Projects & Events
African Art trip
Summer, 2006
Check our the Art Camp Summary created by our friend, Katina
Together with Global Alliance for Africa, Soko Rafiki is sponsoring a trip to Kenya and Tanzania over the summer of 2006. The trip participants are artists, teachers, and students from Chicago area schools. The American group will work with African artists and teachers to plan and conduct a two-day camp for local children in various art and music activities. Because art and music are not widely available in the local African schools this will likely be the first opportunity for some of these children to engage in art and music activities.
Soko Rafiki has donated a potters wheel and floor loom to Tumaini Vocational Training Center, located in Arusha, Tanzania, where the art camp will take place. Tumaini (which, in Swahili, means "hope") hosts programs for children and adolescents who have been orphaned and made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS.
A variety of age appropriate activities will be incorporated into the camp. The leaders will teach skills that children and the community that supports them can ultimately practice as a means of generating income. Other activities are solely to provide psycho-social support for the children.
- Two group project murals (one in mosaic, one painted)
- Inside-Outside Boxes
- Children will work in the media available in the local communities: weaving, ceramics, batik, and beading.
- Children will also work with music teachers to make string and percussion instruments from gourds (a common method used in the region) and learn and perform music and dance with instructors.
The camp will be expanded over the next year and will replicated throughout other areas where Global Alliance is working.
Soko Rafiki will bring to market some of the crafts that will be made during the camp.