Week 12 - Farewell to Sambodhi School - Photo Exhibition

SUCCESS!!! The photo exhibit was just perfect. All of the students, teachers and even some parents were able to attend it. It was the first photo exhibit the school had ever had! And most likely the first time the children had experienced anything like it. We hung over 300 photos of school activities and volunteer work from 2006 to the present day, that I printed, organized, categorized and mounted very carefully so that the photos would not be harmed and could be put in an album following the show.

The smiles and excitement of the students and teachers will never be forgotten! They were so PROUD of their accomplishments! My heart was overjoyed. I am so grateful for the opportunity to show these collected photos and honor the children and school. It was definitely a day I will remember all of my life. Well worth the extra two days of work to install the show - and such a lovely way to say farewell. We titled the show "Reflections" and I believe it was a visual tribute to how capable and hard working these exceptional students are. I am just so filled with love and gratitude for this experience and so happy to share it with all of you that followed my work. Thank you so much!

Please visit facebook for MANY more photos of everyone there looking at photos, haha -

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=281942&id=552870904&l=151aa70cb8

Week 11, Goodbye to Sambodhi Home

As I sit in Ella, Sri Lanka, in an internet cafe and try to come up with the words to describe my final week at the Sambodhi Home, I well up in tears.
The week finished in a busy whirlwind. I ran groups making paper flowers, painting seashells, making necklaces, completing our group mural, working on designs for needlework and future crafts, playing cricket, taking field trips to the beach, museums and temples (THANK YOU MIKA AND JORDAN!), and threw a lovely going away party with cake, cookies, ice cream, soda and balloons for everyone. I think I tried to pack an extra months work into a week.  Residents brought me to their rooms to show me artwork they had completed and hung on their walls. I watched in groups as they cooperatively worked together creating collages and paintings of their own desire. They lined up at the library door to request coloring books, paints, pastels, markers, glue, stickers, large, small or colored paper - each person making creative choices with excitement. Art groups ran for hours, no directives necessary due to open studio feel of our solidly formed and growing group. It is such a change from the first month.
I will never forget saying goodbye to them, smiling and trying to choke back my tears. When Sandharu asked me to sing "I have a Dream" with her for everyone, and held my hand so tightly as we sang, I could no longer hold it in. The group mural now hangs in the dining room, made by the residents themselves, with photos of the work we did together and the words "Sambodhi Home: ARTISTS LIVE HERE!!! please colour their lives." I hope that other volunteers will see it, visit our reorganized library and utilize it's resources. I hope the residents will see it, remember the excitement and joy of creation and continue to make art in my absence. I hope that the 3 months of our moments together, moments of color, creation and happiness, are enough to make lasting memories. I know that those moments for me have been some of the most defining of my lifetime and I will cherish them. I am honored that these amazing people have touched my life, as I am honored to have had support from family and friends that brought me to this awe inspiring place.

A photo after my sweet friends gave me a lovely farewell speech

I now have a week to travel and see more of this rich and beautiful country before I return to Galle and install the photo exhibit I have been working on for the school. We have collected and printed over 300 photographs of the children, teachers and volunteers since the tsunami. The exhibit will be ready to view on Tuesday, and I will say goodbye to everyone there as well, and then finally say goodbye to Sri Lanka as I continue my journey as art therapist in the world.
Uploading photos at this time is a bit difficult - I will most likely add most of them when I return home. Thank you so much for reading!

Weeks 8 and 9

I can't believe I only have a few more weeks here... it has flown by.
It is sad each day knowing as I grow closer and closer to the children that I am leaving so soon. I am still amazed at how we carry on conversations and lessons for hours with very little words in English/Sinhala, but MANY hand gestures and pictures. Perhaps it is our lack of words that makes the smiles and eye contact so meaningful.
I am so busy in the work right now, I am forgetting to take photos.
Dulmina keeps excelling in English and is OBSESSED with playing learning games on the PBS kids website. He doesn't even need me to show him what to do, he can read and understand the directions for himself.
The class had a fantanstic field trip to a park. It was fascinating to see them interacting with other children on the playground. It was also wonderful to spend the morning with their mothers and get to make that connection as well.

Dulmina climbing up the slide

Savindi loves to slide with the help of her mom

Dulmina wants a flower so bad

Hacita climbs

Channa romps around

Hacita and his Mom use the seesaw

Hassal waves to his mom from the structure

Our best attempt at a group photo. This was quite the process. I wish you all could see the multiple series of photos I have, as the Moms tried so hard to get all the kids together in one place, all looking at the camera at the same time. In this one, the tall boy, Chaminda is blocking Savindi, having a tantrum in the back. In our efforts to make this photo happen, every child had a meltdown at least once.

I am trying to push reading books to the children in the classrooms. The school has a wonderful library, but it is not utilized as much as it could be. I attempted to talk with some of the teachers/administration about this, but they were unsure of how successful it would be. I am now taking a - lead by example aproach, and I read a book to start a lesson. I try to translate what I can, but the pictures are what carry the stories well. The students stay very actively engaged of course. After a book, we draw our own characters from the stories making class picture books. I am really hoping this will catch on. One of the teachers noticed this was going well and took some photos for me.

Holding class in the library to encourage it's use. We read a book "Sea Friends." In Sinhala - Maahlua Yaaluah, which actually translates to fish friend, but I loved the rhyme.

After we finsihed drawing, we watched clips of Finding Nemo from Youtube on the netbook (thanks to Eliza and Brian for letting me bring your technology to Sri Lanka! And thank you, Ranil, for helping us get the Dialog broadband!)

My work in Sambodhi home is going amazingly well. My art groups are growing in number everyday. Today we didn't even have enough seats for everyone, people had to sit on the floor, out on the porch or in the other room. They did so happily because they are so thrilled to be making art. Art - Kalaahwah, Together- Ekahtahekvah, One- Ekah, Family - Davulah.
Here are some examples of groups from last week:

Our art group theme on this day was to draw and pass your pitcure for another to add to it. Goal- to help encourage cooperation and collaboration. This group became intense when Roshan began to cover the drawings completely on his turn.

I have worked with Roshan long enough now to know that this drawing is of the tsunami. Roshan typically draws flowers or the tsunami. The tsunami drawings are usually one or two dark colors filling the enitre page. He does at least one tsumani drawing a week. His affect is quite different for the tsumani drawings when compared with the flower drawings.
In this group, when he turned the other residents' drawings into tsunami pictures, they began to talk to eatchother about the tsunami (how valuable for me it would have been to have a translator!). Lili, being the wonderful woman she is, spent a long time trying to tell me her experience. She also drew her own tsunami picture.

                                Lili tells me her experience of the Tsumani while a group member photos.

Lili's Tsunami also fills the page, she chose a blue pastel and a blue piece of paper, to represent the water ("watura" she explained).
A side note on the Tsunami's recent impact on these people - we had planned to take the residents to the beach next week, but because of the tragedy of Japan's recent Tsunami, the managers of the home are too afraid to have the residents be near the water at this time.

Another group success:
I finally collected enough magazines to do a magazine photo collage group. I tryed to include as many magazines of Sri Lanka as I could find so that pictures would be relevant to the residents' experiences. World travel magazines were also used. This was also a very interesting group. Quite a few of the residents repeatedly chose images of families together. Images of the Buddah and animals were also often collected. The residents LOVE this type of collage, we haven't stopped doing it since we started. They have asked for the photos, scissors (kutura) and glue (gum) everyday. They spend so much time flipping through the pages of the magazines and marveling at the images.

I want to add more photos but the internet is giving me trouble... I will try again tomorrow!

week 5-6 (week 7 was a travel week)

For this entry I thought it would be beneficial to describe the population of the people in the home more fully, explain the art therapy processes I am using, and the goals I am hoping to achieve. The residents I work with have to come to live at Sambodhi home because they have been abandoned by their families due to their disability. Some of these families are extremely poor and cannot afford to provide for a disabled family member, other families chose not to live with the social stigma of having a disabled child and never have any contact with them. Whichever the case, the resident now exists solely in the confines of the home. If the resident is school aged, they attend the B. R Dissanayake junior school. Once they have aged out of school, there is an option to leave the home if the resident has the means to find a job without additional assistance, which most of the residents do not. There are no internal caseworkers or outside social services to assist them in employment. Sri Lanka, being a developing country, has passed some laws through Parliament to increase the rights of employment and living conditions for the disabled, but they are yet to be implemented. The disabilities of the residents are various. There are deficits in intellectual functioning, many physical deformities, and/or an inability to communicate verbally. The residents are given chores they must perform as part of their stay. In a way, this seems to provide some purpose for their daily life. I have mentioned previously how awe inspiring it is to see how they take care of one another. Common conflicts and disagreements between the residents that one would expect to exist within any relationship can also be seen. In contrast, I have witnessed repercussions that I personally have found troubling, as result of not following orders and rules, executed even by the residents themselves.
I hope that I am beginning to paint a picture of the obstacles that these people have to contend with. In addition to the previously described circumstances, these people have lived through atrocities of a 30 year civil war, and survived the horrors of a tsunami in which they witnessed the deaths of other residents in the home. One can only imagine the anxiety, depression, loneliness, isolation, trauma, fear and frustration that is possibly felt due to the situations of their lives. From what I have seen so far, there is not a continuous structured outlet for emotional responses and creative drives.
As I am only in Sri Lanka for three months, I knew coming into the volunteer work that my impact was limited. However, through art therapy I hoped to address:
Physical and occupational goals such as improving motor skills
Cognitive goals: improvement of memory, planning, organization
Psychosocial goals: improving interpersonal skills, building ego strengths and constructively expressing emotions
Emotional goals: easing anxiety and depression from feelings of loss, loneliness, guilt, frustration and possible trauma
　
Each art experience targets at least one of these areas. Evaluating how effective they are is difficult due to the limitations of time and our language barrier. However, this experience has done nothing but strengthen my understanding of art as a universal language.
In our art groups I continue to provide opportunities for personal choice of materials. We focused on the mandala one week, Sanskrit for circle, in Sinhalese - roum. We (tried) to use compasses to draw the circle, and also traced circular objects. The residents we given the choice of a big (lo-ku) or small (podi) roum to freely design. Once finished, we hung them in the library all together.

We also continued to try origami, making a fan. The repetitive opposite fold was easy for some, more difficult for others. I could tell many of them were really concentrating hard. We lightened things up a bit by taking photos and playing a peek-a-bo like game once we were done making them.

In the school, I continue to work mostly in the classroom for the children with Autism. Hassal, Mahesha and I spent some time together working with the color red (ratu). Coloring red shapes and playing with a red ball. We also used red instruments for our music time. Hassal has the sweetest singing voice you have ever heard, it makes my heart just melt. I love when he sings as he colors.


Hassal



Mahesha

Dulmina is blowing through every book I put in front of him. Reading is definitely a strength, but writing seems to be a more difficult task. We started using the computer to type words in English. I am hoping that he may possibly type answers to questions by the end of the month.

As I think I mentioned before, Dulmina loves technology. He has already mastered Youtube and searches for songs in English we can sing together. He also enjoys typing words into the Google image search and saving the pictures of what he finds.

We are quite found of eachother, he and I. I was told that he asked for me everyday the week I was gone traveling. It is very endearing that he grabs my hand pulls me to his desk when I arrive in the morning. I met his mother this week and was gushing about how amazing I think he his. I am not sure exactly what she understood of what I said however.

As I grow more attached to the students, residents and staff of Sambodhi home and school, I find myself wishing that I will be able to continue to help them after I leave Sri Lanka...

Weeks 3 and 4

We spent the week at Sambodhi school getting ready for the Independence Day assembly. The children practiced songs and their parts for the performance on Feb, 3rd, (Sri Lankan Independence Day is Feb. 4th, but it is a school holiday). I was asked by the teachers to draw different Sri Lankan heroes for the occasion. I spent most of the week with the oldest students. I would draw an outline of a hero from their books and try to get them to color it in. They were very shy to try and paint the faces, but very interested in watching.
 

The assemby was very proud occasion for the school. The students seemed honored and excited to play their parts. Many parents came to the school to watch the performance.

click here for additional photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=266649&id=552870904&l=6c9519e85c

(scroll through because I put all of the Sambodhi photos from the last two weeks in one folder)

At Sambodhi Home I am working with the residents on making personal choices, specifically choices about color and choices of materials. In the previous week, I noticed many of the residents waiting for me to give them colors and materials and thought it would be helpful to let them choose for themselves. It is very interesting to see what each person prefers. The residents seem to really enjoy our time together. Some of them have started waiting for me outside of the school to walk with me over to the home to help set up for our art group. One man (called Udaya) has been carrying some of his artwork around in his pocket. I noticed him looking at it while he was waiting for me one day. He folded up the pictures, put them back in his pocket, grabbed my arm and started walking me over to the home with the biggest smile. How I wish I could speak Sinhala, it would be wonderful to know more fully what they are thinking.

Udaya loves art

We made a paper chain out of strips of everyone's artwork. We say,
Art: Kah-laah-wah
Together: Ekah-tah-ek-vah
One: E-kah
Family: Dah-vu-lah
I hope to continue it around our whole space. A woman called Latha missed art group that day and made some links on her own that evening. She dragged me to her room the next morning to show me her work. I just about cried, it was really touching to see her excitement about the activity.

We cleaned out the library. Which was really a closet. I didn't really get too many "before" photos because I was so motivated to jump in and get it done. Its just as well... alot of things were very dirty, moldy and covered with cobwebs - not a pretty sight. I also came across many different bugs I never care to see again. Its for the best the light didn't work.

As I started to drag out old boxes and piles of books, the residents were very intrigued. They jumped right into help. Terrance, a wonderful man who works at Sambodhi told me that the residents were very happy to be cleaning the books with me.

We wiped each book clean of dust and dirt and I tried to organize them as best I could - English books, Sinhalese books, books in other languages such as French and Dutch, coloring books and blank school books. While doing this we found many art supplies as well. The residents were thrilled and so was I. We now have many sets of craypas, markers and colored pencils to use. I also found some larger paper, colored construction paper and games. The best part was when a girl called Nishanthi came home from school and picked out one the books to start reading. It was a really good day.

We also made masks this week. This was a riot. The residents loved it. It was so heart warming to see them wear the masks walking around the home. I hope you enjoy the photos. Click here to see more photos: 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=266649&id=552870904&l=6c9519e85c

AND thanks so much for reading.