Art for Gorillas

Our students take at least three quizzes per AoC course in addition to a pre- and post-questionnaire. Not only is this a way for the AoC team to assess student reactions to curriculum elements, but it’s also very helpful for us to see how we’re doing in inspiring and educating children. We always try to improve and refine our delivery of the lessons and become better teachers. What AoC’s program offers is very different from almost any other classroom in Rwanda. We stay away from rote memorization methods. Instead we want to equip our students with the social and emotional skills and on teaching children to think critically and solve problems creatively. So, as children prepare for taking their quizzes, we ask them to remember what they have been learning in class and practicing daily as well as use the resource materials we have provided. It’s sometimes a slow process, but it makes for real change.

Top scorers also receive prizes!

By Eric and Innocent

Our students are committed to protecting the environment! We invite you to join us in Rushubi and Nyange schools’ woodlots where we are planting indigenous and agro-forestry trees to create animal habitat, prevent soil erosion, and add more beauty to an already beautiful place.

The AoC team cuts off the plastic seedling containers and distributes trees to excited children.

A student looks for the perfect place to plant his tree.

Students place protective ‘cages’ around their young trees so that people and animals don’t trample them. They also add wildflowers!

Experiencing extremely large amounts of rainfall these days, we aim to continue building up this section of land with lots of trees to deter the sheets of water rushing down from the mountains heading directly to the village just beyond and below. A child from that village drowned in the flooding a few years ago.

Teamwork abounds with digging holes, mixing cement, adding rocks, and mounting the Protect our Trees signs.

Protect our Trees signs are made and placed to remind the local community members walking along the paths not to trample on the seedlings with their feet or by their goats or cattle and to not uproot the trees while they plant Irish potatoes, beens, peas, or wheat.

It is very rewarding when we come together and strive for common goals and fun along the way. We reflect upon the teamwork amongst our students with great satisfaction.

More soon.

A report from Olivier.
“Before going outside to plant trees, let’s become trees inside.” Valerie announces to the children. Students scatter themselves around the room and follow more of Valerie’s direction by imagining their feet to be roots, their bodies the trunks of trees, their skin is rough like bark, arms become branches, and fingers flutter like leaves. They sway from wind and rain while forest animals hop (stuffed toy monkeys and a big plastic tarantula) from branch to branch.

Students become trees before heading outside to plant trees.

Today’s sentence for attendance is, “People and animals need trees.” After saying this loudly and clearly children receive their seedlings.

Phocas hands out seedlings which he grew in our office garden.

We are trying something new this year by labeling seedlings with the names of our students. We want to encourage better care and monitoring from the kids.

Seedlings with labels.

Together we discuss the benefits of trees. Then we narrow down the many good reasons and identify three objectives for our particular school woodlots; creating animal habitat, soil erosion control, and beautification.

With seedlings in hand, kids are ready to start planting.

The Leakey Foundation and California Academy of Sciences presents The Female in Evolution.

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Hi dear readers! This is Olivier. One of many practical conservation activities that AoC does with its students is the planting of trees and shrubs to enhance the natural environment outside of the park. We give our students seedlings to plant during the long rainy season – February through May – so next week is time to plant! In preparation, children familiarize themselves with a variety of trees. They are excited with these activities.

A student examines a visual with leaves of Casuarina equisetifolia which is known in our local language as umushishi, a very important wind breaker.

Before planting, we first plan the types of trees and location. Over the years we have been gathering information by asking many people and specialists for advice on which species are appropriate for different soil conditions; it is a waste of time to plant trees in unsuitable conditions. We also think about proper spacing, site preparation, and tending. This year, AoC students will plant Calliandra calothylsusa, Casuarina equisetifolia (umushishi), Markhamia lutea (umusave), and Spathodea campanulata or African Tulip Tree. The most interesting thing is that we have all the seeds in our possession. We bought many seeds from RAB (Rwandan Agriculture Board).

We plant a variety of indigenous and agro-forestry species.

At the AoC office, we have seedling beds that Phocas, an AoC team member, prepares and takes care of. The umulinzi tree is a famous indigenous tree in Rwanda because it is attributed to cultural beliefs so planting and growing this tree has become one of our objectives.

Phocas and Umulinzi, Julie’s dog, (meaning the protector in Kinyarwanda), take care of a young umulinzi tree in our garden. Also more visuals of umulinzi leaves and flowers are seen above.

Let’s go back to our classroom with our students. After our discussions, the art activity begins. With pencils, children draw leaves using cutouts and paint them with cool colors on grid paper. After that, they paint the background with warm colors. Look, one can recognize the tree by looking at children’s art works!

The leaves of umulinzi, umusave and African Tulip Tree are illustrated.

Meet you at tree planting sites next week with 200 AoC students. Bye!

Hi, Eusebe here. A few days ago, Julie, two Sports for Gorillas kids – Habibu and Valens – and I visited mountain gorillas in their natural habitat, Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda. We visited Hirwa Group with 17 members; 1 silverback, 7 adult females, 2 black backs, and 7 juveniles and babies. Munyinya is the silverback of 27 years of age. It is an enthusiastic group with the juveniles playing a lot. Mama Kabatwa’s twins, Isango Gakuru and Isango Gato, are so cute and healthy. Another very exciting thing is that Mama Mararo has a baby born on the 2nd of February 2012. She is so protective and loving to her new baby. The baby will soon be named at the Kwita Izina Ceremony in June. Visiting this group was really wonderful.
At the park’s buffer wall, Bernice, our guide from RDB, gives the tourists a briefing on how to behave inside the park and in front of the mountain gorillas.

Park guide, Olivier, while munching on a bamboo shoot, tells us that bamboo shoots are like beer to the mountain gorillas because when they eat them they become so animated.

Olivier, RDB Guide, shows us a favorite treat of the mountain gorillas, bamboo shoots.

This was the first opportunity for me to see the mountain gorillas in their natural habitat. Being face to face with the gorillas made me so happy. I watched carefully their behaviors which I have been studying ever since working at Art of Conservation. I watched their eating, playing, size, shape, colors, chest slapping… all things I have been learning about from people in conservation, and from books and documentaries.

We viewed Hirwa Group on a slope of the volcano foothills. They put on a great display of playing, standing up and walking bipedal, chest beating, wrestling, rolling down the steep slope and running back up again.

Mountain gorillas are approximately 98% genetically similar to humans. Their gestation period is 9 months as people. An infant will cling to its mama for about 3 years and share a night nest with her.

Mama Mararo’s baby, born on the 2nd of February 2012, takes milk from its mama. The baby will soon be named on 16 June 2012 at the Kwita Izina Ceremony (Rwanda’s annual gorilla naming ceremony).

Mountain gorillas… so happy and peaceful in their home.

Art of Conservation’s sponsored Sports for Gorillas programs are providing the Ibirunga Tennis & Running Club members who are 15 years and older a visit to the mountain gorillas. Valens and Habibu are the first while the other kids are waiting for their turn! We will let you know more about this later.

Valens (left), Habibu (right), Silverback Munyinya (far back), and I (middle) in the mountain gorilla’s lush home. You can see all of the healthy plants, let’s protect them!!

Looking for a special way to give back this Earth Day? Art of Conservation (AoC) is excited to announce a new partnership with Wet Paint, an independently owned art supply store based in Minnesota, to help you make a bigger difference—just in time for Earth Day.

Wet Paint has generously offered to match all art supply donations dollar-for-dollar from our wish list on their website!

Your tax-deductible contribution right now will double in value to help us strengthen conservation and health messaging through the arts for children attending primary schools bordering Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park.

Just think—if you could donate $50 worth of arts supplies, then Wet Paint will contribute another $50—for a total of $100, multiplying the effect of your commitment to educating children and inspiring creative young minds.

Please help us reap the full benefit of this generous offer from Wet Paint—donate art supplies today! Make your tax-deductible gift of art supplies before Earth Day and see your generosity doubled!

AoC provides a safe and fun learning environment for students to discover and explore their world through hands-on activities. Every lesson we teach ends with an art project. Students are introduced to different forms of artistic expression, such as drawing and painting, among other hands-on activities, to strengthen understanding of concepts in conservation and health.

Our art projects incorporate themes such as drawing perspective, 3D shapes and shadowing, color effect, positive and negative space, mirror images, and more. Some examples of our students’ art projects include decorating rainforest animal visors, drawing and painting rainforest animals, making colorful tissue paper and paper mache mountain gorillas, creating conservation campaign posters, and much more!

AoC students are also given exciting opportunities to express themselves through music, song, and dance. They perform to heartening songs with conservation messages, using props and wearing colorful animal masks made by staff artists in the AoC studio. Staff artists also paint colorful conservation murals at the schools where the AoC works to further reinforce our messages.

There is no better time than right now to make a donation because it will be matched 100% by Wet Paint—that means your gift will go twice as far to help us in our efforts to nurture creativity through art projects and inspire new generations of conservation and health ambassadors.

Make your gift count for Earth Day—donate art supplies by this Sunday, April 22nd and help us take full advantage of this matching gift opportunity from Wet Paint. Together, we can empower the future leaders of Rwanda to protect their natural resources and mountain gorillas for generations to come!

Thank you sincerely for your support of our important conservation work in Rwanda.

A short video with scenes from the classroom during our first few months of 2012 lessons.  Still lots more to instill in the kids –  just getting started – but we’re off to a great beginning as Valerie, Innocent, Olivier, Eric and Eusebe work hard to foster as much knowledge and understanding as they can with these sensational children.

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My team and I had the pleasure and honor of getting a few moments with Ian Redmond, the renowned Great Ape expert. Ian was in town with the crew of Visionquest, an Australian-based, independent production company filming in 3D the plight of the great apes. Having just crossed the DRC border into Rwanda, they were surfacing from Kahuzi-Biega National Park, home to Grauer’s gorillas. While in DRC they also spent time with bonobos in their wild habitat and sanctuaries… something I hope to do one of these years. The orangutans of South East Asia will also feature largely in the film with the distressing sight of the extreme loss of their habitat largely due to the planting of palm plantations. I think the film comes out in 2013. I’ll let you know.

Had Ian originally planned on getting a bit of exercise in addition to his forest foraging? Probably not, but while the film crew was busy speaking with colleagues at the Karisoke Research Center, Eric and I quietly captured Ian and brought him to the tennis courts where we had been giving a lesson on rainforest animals to the children.

Donning newly created rainforest animal visors, children happily welcome Ian.

A tennis racket was offered to Ian which he then proceeded to hold onto for an hour or more. The children took turns playing with this most special great ape.

Assumpta and Ian preparing to serve to their opponents by emulating gorilla behavior.

With our upcoming Children’s Tennis Tournament, an event featured in Rwanda’s annual gorilla naming ceremony called Kwita Izina, the children now have a new technique of psyching out their opponents. Ian’s demonstration of panting, chest slapping, celebrating with a big ‘ole slap on the ground, and finally striking a pose with such attitude gives kids the confidence that they will have the upper edge in any competition by doing this type of display!

Practicing gorilla behavior with an expert.

We made our way from the courts to the AoC House with Coach Tony and the excited sports kids in tow. Ian cued up some of his recent gorilla footage (click here for Silverback Siblings Strutting Their Stuff) for the children to see the real actors, the gorillas, doing their stuff. The team and I also got the opportunity to show him around and share with him some of the things that we do.

The AoC team, Coach Tony, sports kids, Umulinzi dog, and Ian.

If all days were this much fun and joy so easily shared, life would be great! Thanks, Ian, for your time with us and all that you do for the great apes and their habitat.

Hi. This is Olivier. Rwanda’s children are on break from school for a few weeks as the first term comes to a close. The country also pauses for a moment of reflection in observance of the 1994 Genocide. With permission of Tony, the tennis coach, the AoC team and I are able to use the Ibirunga Tennis & Running Club to teach our Sports for Gorillas program during the school break. Resuming our staying healthy lessons with the group of 20 plus kids, we focus on basic oral health.

Just as the children in our weekday program, the sports kids receive toothbrushes and toothpaste and watch demonstrations and listen to discussions from my team mates. With the newly constructed toilet facilities, there is no need for us to haul jerry cans of drinking water and plastic water basins… we can use the sinks!

Sitting on grass mats at the tennis courts, children listen to the team and I talk about basic oral health.

THEN….. before we could move on to our next lesson… THE RAIN CAME POURING DOWN! As many children as could fit into our truck got the first ride home. Julie returned and took the rest of the happy kids home.

Stay tuned!!!