See the full article here:
http://www.gotravel24.com/galleries/feature-focus/write-swaziland
WRITE ON SWAZILAND ON GOTRAVEL24
WRITE ON SWAZILAND ON JUXTAPOSE
From the Juxtapose blog:
Color Inspires Hope:” Write on Africa Travels to Swaziland for Children’s Mural
We introduced you to the inspiring work of Write on Africa earlier this summer. The non-profit initiative recently spent a week in Swaziland to develop creative solutions for NGO’s. “In a community whose future seems hopeless at times, colour inspires hope.”
Its really an honor to have a major platform like Juxtapose take interest in us and expose our story to the world.
Thanks Juxtapose ,we like you,:)
See more here:
http://www.juxtapoz.com/Current/qcolor-inspires-hopeq-write-on-africa-travels-to-swaziland-for-childrens-mural
WRITE ON SWAZILAND ON LETS COLOUR
See what the lets colour project had to say about us:
We like them alot :)
http://www.letscolourproject.com/blog/2010/09/colouring-africa/
DAY 6 of 6 MURAL COMPLETED
Today was the end of a epic adventure for me and Xanele,
Not only did we inspire others but we inspired ourselves.
Our world is faced with may harsh realities and unfortunate truths,we choose to colour it in, and make somebody’s life better ,even if just for the day.
See pics from today here on our daily journal:
http://www.writeonafrica.org/travels/write-on-swaziland/day-6-mural-completed/
DAY 5 of 6 MURAL DAY AT OVC CENTRE IN CABRINI
For more images and our daily journal please see:
http://www.writeonafrica.org/travels/write-on-swaziland/day-5-mural-day/
DAY 4 of 6/SWANNEPHA BACK GARDEN PROJECT
For more pictures and info: <http://www.writeonafrica.org/travels/write-on-swaziland/day-four/>
FAVELA PAINTING
Other creative activists we love :)
We hope to be working with these guys sooner then later.
Haas & Hahn
Haas&Hahn; is the working title of artistic duo Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn. They started working together in 2005, when they filmed a documentary about hip hop in the favelas of Rio and São Paolo for MTV. Inspired by this visit, they embarked on a journey to bring outrageous works of art to unexpected places, starting with painting enormous murals in the slums of Brazil together with the local youth.
And so the Favela Painting project was born:
http://www.favelapainting.com
WATERPRIZE
The Write on Africa blog is not only a platform to expose the work we do but that of other creative activists from around the world that we share a common goal with:
We just received this from Johnny Clauson:
WaterPrize is a large scale ArtPrize entry on a mission to provide resources and attention to the number one problem of today, the global lack of clean water. Approximately 1 out of every 8 people do not have access to clean, safe drinking water. This is not okay.
WaterPrize is an ArtPrize entry created by Johnny Clauson, Kris McNeil, and Jon Bell, who like many in their local community, are passionate about the global issue of access to clean water. Using ArtPrize as a platform to engage others, the piece exists to raise support and awareness for a new water organization called 20 Liters.
20 Liters was created as the next step in expanding the clean water initiative Mars Hill has pursued over the past 3 years in Rwanda. 20 Liters main efforts include training Rwandans to install and maintain slow-sand filters and install rainwater cisterns in Masaka, Rwanda. To date, there have been over 300 filters and nine rainwater cisterns installed, making river and swamp water drinkable for over 6000 people in that area.
The WaterPrize painting is 16 feet x 20 feet and is a 5 layer stencil painting on wood with mixed media…currently it is on display in the water pool at the Gerald R Ford Presidential museum in Grand Rapids, MI.
Please check out http://thewaterprize.com/ and http://20liters.org/ for more information.
DAY 2 of 6 / NATICC / SIDL’INHLOKO REGION
For more images and our daily journal please see:
http://www.writeonafrica.org/travels/write-on-swaziland/
ART TIMES NEWSPAPER
Nice article in the South African Art Times on Percey Bartley house,
Read the full article here:
http://www.arttimes.co.za/news_read.php?news_id=2468
DAY 1 of 6 / PACT/ MAGELE COMMUNITY / NEW WARMTH SCHOOL
For more images and our daily journal please see:
http://www.writeonafrica.org/travels/write-on-swaziland/
PERCEY BARTLEY HOUSE: A PHOTO JOURNAL BY ROWAN PYBUS OF MAKHULU PRODUCTIONS
For more photo’s please click the link below
http://www.writeonafrica.org/projects/percey-bartley-house-rejuvination-project/
PERCEY BARTLEY HOUSE FIRST FEW DAYS
Here are a few pics from the first three days of prepping the house ,artists arrive to paint tomorrow.
WOA LOGOS PLEASE
Because we strongly believe that everyone is an artist we are inviting you to design and draw and paint a logo for us,we have decided that WOA should not have just one logo to be represented by but rather hundreds and from around the world.
As we receive new logos they will be updated here on the site and you will be credited along side your work.
Please email us your logos,just go to the contact page here:http://www.writeonafrica.org/contact/
GREENPOP NEWS/UPDATE
View the GREENPOP newsletter here:
http://greenpop.org/wp-content/uploads/greenpop-email3.
LETS COLOUR
Leonardo Da Vinci once said that purple increased meditation by 15%. I found this video today but just could not find a contact email address for them anywhere. With the magic of technology, I utilized Twitter to reach out to the Let’s Colour Project and now have a meeting with them whilst on my visit to London this October. I hope to convince them to support my Write On Africa project and together hopefully paint an entire township and support future Write on Africa road trips and support other projects! Why not?
The making of Lets Colour
Let’s Colour Project - Brazil documentary
Let’s Colour Project - London documentary
Let’s Colour Project - Indian documentary
Let’s Colour Project - French documentary
Dancing walls behind the scenes
Dancing walls
NEW IN PROJECTS SECTION
Just added papergirl and FAITH47 videos to the projects section:
SAPPI IDEAS THAT MATTER WINNER
Write on Africa is proud to announce that we have been selected as a grant recipient for Sappi Ideas that matter 2010.
Our proposal included the prospect to repaint 10 creches plus designing, printing and distributing locally relevant educational books. We have painted three creches up to now and the impact it has made is continually tremendous. By adding colour to creches, it transforms their whole educational experience. Colour theorist Kurt Goldstein emphasized its importance by stating that “colour helps guarantee normal life”.
The grant we applied for was R128 000 in total. Sappi was inspired to the extend that they are granting us with more money than we budgeted for. The amount is still to be announced.
A huge thank you to everyone who helped to make this project a success!
OGILVY AND WRITE ON AFRICA
Reinventing charity with creativity.
When Ogilvy moved to Woodstock a couple years they adopted a charity called Percy Bartley House (PBH), a home for boys that operates out of an old house in the area. While at PBH, the boys are enrolled in school or skills training programmes and are taught life skills before being reunited with their families.Over the years the home has become run down and has lost its sense of life and colour. Ogilvy have have decided to collaborate with Write on Africa to restore life and colour into the home with wall murals done by well-known local artists.
In addition http://greenpop.org/ will be planting some trees for us.
ARTISTS
Faith47
Freddy Sam
Black Koki
351073
Mike Tymbios
Xanele van Rensburg.
Contact amy.mabin@ogilvy.co.za if you want to get involved.
VIEW PICS HERE:
http://www.writeonafrica.org/projects/percey-bartley-house-rejuvination-project/
Video courtesy of Rowan Pybus and Katharina Brinkmann of Makhulu Productions.
Music by Gary Morris(Lagos Disco Machine)
ABOUT RICKY LEE GORDON
Here’s a nice little article on the founder of Write on Africa Ricky Lee Gordon,
Read the rest of the article here:
http://10and5.com/2010/08/featured-artist-ricky-lee-gordon/#more-12197
QUOTES THAT PROPEL US FORWARD
I found author Brian K Murphy’s book called “transforming ourselves, transforming the world” a very inspirational read. Here are a few extracts out of his book that “dares us to imagine a just future”:
“The future is not determined, it is influenced by what we do now in our various communities, in our various countries and in common cause internationally - by the possibilities we envision and the actions we take to make our visions reality”
“Creative activism is driven by necessity, and by personal integrity, dignity and courage fo millions of individual citizens working together to make their world a better place”
“We need to assert in practicing ideas that contradict the irrational in today’s society,
to initiate new modes of human expression and new perceptons of human potential.
And we need to do so not because such initiatives will bring utopia, but because inaction is insane.
We choose not to “escape our freedom” but rather, to practice freedom; this act is the essence of humanness.”
“The global situation will improve; not by chance, but by active critical choice of individuals to transform their lives and their societies to ensure global justice, and the free expression of human potential”
