February 29th, 2008. Ribeira, Salvador. Today was a very exciting day for the kids at the Minha vo Flor orphanage in Ribeira, Salvador. All the children were in for an unusual treat today, when graffiti artist, and member of the ICBIE staff, Julio Costa arrived with a dozen blocks of paper, and a huge box of colored pencils under his arms. The enthusiasm seemed to burst out of the walls of the orphanage, as Julio explained to them that, from now on, he was going to come by once a week to teach them all the secrets of art he had stored away in his sleeves.
This social project, which was designed to teach the children not only how to draw and make pieces of art of their own, but to widen their cultural horizons, was sponsored by a few teachers from the city of Verbania, Italy. The latter made a very generous donation for art materials, which was immediately put to good use. Julio will be going to teach an art course for several weeks, in which he will try and build the children’s confidence in themselves and their work, and will hopefully put a smile on their faces.
The first lesson this afternoon went surprisingly well, and everyone ranging from age 2 to 15 joined in, clinging to Julio’s every word of advice. He was asked to draw pictures of mermaids and cars – not the usual choice of subject for his art work – for them, which the kids then proudly held up next to their attempt of the same picture. The class progressed rapidly, as the children went from using just one color for the whole picture, to discovering a whole new world of color combinations.
All in all, day # 1 of the project went as well as anyone could have hoped, and everyone at Minha vo Flor is anxiously waiting for next week to come around, so that they can further work on their art skills, and spend some more time with their favorite graffiti artist.
Annie Neumann
