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Salt Spring Africa Projects
Salt Spring Africa...
"Time To Deliver: Community Action on AIDS" is a public engagement event that brings the urgency of AIDS home. A field of 8,000 flags, arranged in the shape of a red AIDS ribbon surrounded by white confronts visitors with the dramatic and tragic scale of AIDS. Why 8,000? This is one flag for every person who will die from AIDS, every day. This moving tribute is a powerful way to connect communities in the fight against AIDS and to mobilize support for initiatives that address AIDS and poverty. “Time to Deliver ” is a large scale public art installation that makes an unforgettable statement about the crisis of AIDS and passionately encourages viewers to get informed, get involved, take action, donate, and volunteer to stop the pandemic. It provides an opportunity for community based organizations to become involved in an international public education campaign through public art, linking these grassroots community organizations together into a network of like-minded and determined groups who can share skills and resources-community to community across the planet. Quilt Project
“Our country, Lesotho, has got a disease. Our organization, SOLID, (the Salt Spring Organization for Life Improvement & Development) has been sending members to Africa for years, to take on and witness the AIDS pandemic on the front lines. Projects have sprung up out of Salt Springers’ connections and friendships in Africa; community gardens, reforestation projects, and AIDS awareness in schools are some of the initiatives we are committed to. Here at home, SOLID aims to educate people about what they can do personally to help people in Africa affected by AIDS, and how they can use their own resources and talents to make a difference. We know art and ceremony move people in ways that the evening news doesn’t… in this spirit SOLID has created a public art display called “A Day of AIDS”. The flags themselves are little 8x6 inch squares of cotton/polyester broadcloth. Once the art installation is taken down, where do these little flags end up? Inspired by the poem above, we decided to invite the artists, quilters, knitters, textile creators and crafty folk from all over Canada to make quilt squares out of "leftover" flags. In the spirit of engaging people to ACT meaningfully, the flag project takes on a life of its own once the flags are taken down. Artists, teachers, quilters, grandparents... anyone who has a hand with a needle and thread was invited to transform flags into squares of quilts. The quilts were sent to Lesotho, Southern Africa, to act as warm blankets for orphans who live in the mountains. =============================================== You can donate to our Salt Spring Africa Projects
here
Peace Tiles
The Peace Tiles Project has traveled to a host of different venues in Canada under the guidance of SOLID’s Meron Moroz and members of the Global Youth of Gulf Islands Secondary School.
"This exchange is a unique approach to the project and brings our world together, demonstrating that the goals and hopes of youth for global peace and justice are the same around the world.” Peace Tiles is a big, bold global effort with lots of pieces constantly in play. We believe that by strengthening ties between people and communities through the arts, we can enhance our prospects for a peaceful world. " The first Salt Spring Peace Tiles mural was made for World AIDS Day, 2005, with the Global Awareness group of Gulf Islands Secondary School. The finished Salt Spring mural was sent to Leribe, Lesotho, a small country in sub-Saharan Africa that Salt Spring has been developing a "twinning" relationship with. Early in 2006, members of SOLID travelled to Lesotho to deliver and install the Salt Spring Peace Tiles Mural, and to conduct a peace tiles workshop at Pitseng High School, the Gulf Islands Secondary School's twinned school. The tiles that the African students create have returned to Salt Spring Island. "This is an incredible opportunity for Salt Spring kids to be part of something truly global, because there are Peace Tiles workshops happening in Senegal, Uganda, India.... All of these projects involve kids who are directly affected by AIDS, through losing family members or even parents. For Salt Spring kids to connect with these kids really brings the AIDS issue home. And for those kids in Lesotho, to know that their artwork is on display in Canada, is a huge affirmation that they matter, that the world cares about them," said Meroz. In 2008, SOLID was nominated for the YMCA's prestigious =============================================== You can donate to our Salt Spring Africa Projects
here
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