ART
REFUGE
REPORT
2002
A Winding Path:
Goals of Art Refuge
At the Reception Centers for New Arrivals in Kathmandu and Dharamsala January to May 2001, I facilitated an enrichment program for Tibetan refugee children who have just escaped from Tibet. This project is called Art Refuge and is sponsored by Friends of Tibetan Women's Association where I am interning as part of my major in Art and Community Studies at UC/Santa Cruz.
The long-term goal for FOTWA at Art Refuge is to provide emotional nourishment through the medium of artistic expression for Tibetan refugee children. FOTWA's short-term strategy is to lay a groundwork for sustainability. To support this, I was asked to design a curriculum for Art Refuge, implement art projects and games and train the teachers how to make reports.
Art Refuge functions at many levels. Art is a way for the Tibetan children to release the tension they are holding on to inside such as the repressive conditions they had lived under in Tibet or the high levels of fear and stress from their journey out. The children were often shut down, shy and fearful when they reached India. Art is a way of drawing them out. They drew pictures of crossing snowy mountains and how long it took. One girl drew a winding path then flipped the paper over continuing it on the other side to show how far she had walked.