Everything Under The Sun: Art Works And Literature Raising Hope

Friday, August 5, 2016

Art Works And Literature Raising Hope

A picture by a 12 year old Pakistani girl was in The Images of Compassion Exhibit.

There can be a number of reasons for an organization to hold an exhibition. Among the reasons is to raise funds, to share works of art, to bring awareness of an issue to a general audience, to highlight important features of specific art collections.

THE COMPASSION ANTHOLOGY compiles works of art, essays, stories, poems, and video that depict compassion. Some of their exhibitions raise funds to help groups of people in need. This spring they held The Images of Compassion Exhibit at North Shore Community College in Danvers, Massachusetts to raise funds for CHILDHELP SIERRA LEONE, an NGO that helps underprivileged and impoverished children, families, and communities. The funds were targeted specifically to Global Giving's project, GIRLS HOPE MISSION, which works to help end child marriages through the education of girls.

In 2014, as most of us remember, an ebola outbreak affected the people of Sierra Leone. Children became orphaned and destitute, putting their survival at risk. Many young girls were coerced into marriage in order to survive. But that also meant many losses for these girls, especially if they were forced to get married before they turned 15 years old. Among the losses were the opportunity to receive a full education, leading to a lifetime of lower income. Often, these girls were exposed to physical, sexual, and emotional violence. ChildHelp's initiative through Global Giving was designed to provide education and support to approximately 600 girls, giving them the hope of being able to engage in sustainable employment.

Many artists and writers contributed works to the exhibition. They include Don Cooper, Jan Houten, Marielle Folk, Beth Grossman, Zachary Naylor, and many others, Volunteers Michelle Wessely and Mark Regnier, along with librarians Kerri Mangione and Christine Goodchilde, arranged the works into their spectacular look for the public.

Here's an excerpt from a poem, about sex-trafficking survivors:

What Is Hope?

A second wind.

The flight inside

the creature that

is the holy,

eternal verb, Is:

who bent the metal.

Is: the mother

of a lighter bone.

The kind that

Terror cannot allow.

- from "Bird"

by Jennifer Jean

(Evolve #Hope)

Some of the works on exhibit.

This poem could just as well apply to the events in Nice and how terrorizing has been affecting those who live in France, on continental Europe, in the US, and refugees from war-torn areas.