Art for Gorillas

Category: Art of Conservation (AoC) | Date: May 22 2009 | By: Julie

Wake up! The bus leaves at 5:00 am!

In the wee hours of Sunday morning, children will be racing out of their houses to catch a bus leaving for Kigali, Rwanda’s capital city, a place many of them have never been. They’ll be heading to the city to participate in a 5K Fun Run that’s part of Kigali’s 5th Annual Run for Peace Marathon–this year the theme focuses on ending violence against children and women. All the kids are involved with Art of Conservation projects around Musanze, Rwanda, and I’ll be the leading the group down Sunday to meet up with other Art of Conservation team members already in the city.

When we learned of the early morning departure from Musanze necessary to make the 8am race start time in Kigali, Valerie called the school headmasters to ask if the 5am meeting time would be a problem for the children and their parents.

Donat, one of the school headmasters replied, “No, the kids and their parents are highly motivated for the field trip. The only hesitation is that forest buffalo are wandering out of the park during those hours and they may frighten the children.”

Whoever would have thought we’d have to factor in 250 kilo buffalo into our logistics plan?

If all goes smoothly and we avoid any unpleasant encounters with the park’s wild animals, then we should all have an eye-opening experience in Kigali.

Preparing the kids for the field trip, we asked them show us what the word “peace” means to them by expressing themselves in pictures and written words. Here is a selection of some of their work.

1 of Worksheet 1.

2 of Worksheet 1.

1 of Worksheet 2.

2 of Worksheet 2.

Tags: art, children, peace, rwanda, sports