The Infinite Vision Foundation's Beautiuful Project goes to Africa (www.infinitevisionart.com) - November 2006
(view the fundraising video here, more photos click here)

Thank you again for you friendship and support of this project. All of the events and brainstorming and good vibes were able to translate into so much in the world. Thank you. Thank you. It was so much more than we ever expected and we were so grateful to have this opportunity.

First Day....
We flew in from N'djamena yesterday by UN plane to Abeche where we will be based. It was a bit surreal. We have met so many journalists and aid workers from all over the world and it has been great. Tomorrow we go to the Gaga Camp and are very excited. I am also excited because the director of UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees) met with us and is very excited about this project and the psychosocial potential in the camps here and so it has developed into a research project as well.

Midway....
We are half-way through the trip now and are a little tired today but good. We are going to the camp every day now in the morning and returning to Abeche each afternoon. There are no paved roads here so the rides are very bumpy. Everyone speaks French or Arabic so we communicate with the class through the translator. Fortunately with art, the emphasis is not on language. UNHCR is very interested in what we are doing so they will send out a person tomorrow to the camp to see what we do and there are some journalists here that would like to do a story on this project. The children are great and they will sit a draw one drawing for hours if we let them. There is so little for them to do here and to engage in that they love it. We can only work with 60 students because of our supplies but there are 4000 more we could work with in this camp alone and there are many more camps. It is hard sometimes because you just want to be able to do more but we do the best we can, right? So many of them just seem like they just need an opportunity to get out. They have drawn pictures of flowers and huts and animals right alongside soldiers killing people in their old villages. Today I listened to each child tell their story of where they were from and what happened there. It is difficult to not cry in front of them when you look into their faces as they tell you what they have lost and witnessed at such a young age, and still, they laugh a lot and smile. The art has been a great way for them to express themselves and tell their stories and hopefully, create new stories in their lives. We encourage the "Three Rules of Art" daily: 1) There are no mistakes in art, 2)Use your imagination to tell a story or express yourself and 3)Your mind is powerful.

Last Day.....
It was difficult saying good bye to the kids and it is strange to not know of their future. A film crew for SDC (Save Darfur Coalition, George Clooney's organization) ended up following and filming us for a few days and they will be cutting a story this month. Our last night in Abeche we sat down with David Rubenstein, SDC's director in from NY and Mia Farrow (Unicef's good will ambassador). David Rubenstein may have a donor for us to fund the next phase - yea! It was all a bit surreal to go from being in the refugee camp with the kids to sitting down with Mia Farrow who scrawled her home address and email for me to keep in touch. UNHCR wants us to return within the year to do a large training for many regions in Africa and wants to incorporate this world-wide. Incredible. We are thrilled to be bringing this to so many people throughout the world over the next few years.

I hope you enjoy the pictures that tell some of the story of the Beautiful Project. May the smiles of the children illuminate and educate us all.

Pam