Art in All of Us (SM) (AiA) is a non for profit organization based in Belgium and in the USA (501(c)(3)) that promotes tolerance with creative cultural exchange activities throughout the 192 UN listed countries, using Art. Inspiring the children around the world is part of its Mission and Itinerary.
Art in All of Us has obtained the formal support of the UNICEF in New York, which will help achieve goals and promote the organization on a large scale. Many other global partners are supported their quest. SOS Children's Village, Fundacion Vicente Huidobro, ArtVenture, Fundacion America are only a couple of them.
All the participants to the project are volunteer workers. The team's main strength is its multicultural origins. Volunteers are spread out over the 6 continents, enabling AiA to widen its vision.
Art in All of Us was created to promote art among the children of the world. The name was chosen because: 'ART' is the main communication language used for our programs; and our programs are extended to every single country recognized by the United Nations... In other words, we target 'ALL' the children of these countries.
It is very easy! With the help of your teacher, you can participate to our Pen Pal program. We will put you in contact with another school in the world, where each one of your classmates will have a friend to correspond with. The basis of the exchanges is CREATIVITY... here again, you will express yourself and communicate with your pen pals through art.
Any children and schools can take part to our programs. They can directly contact us by email or fill in the online school online school participation form. They can also ask their teacher to do so.
We are working with about 40 volunteer translators worldwide that help us translating the thousands of poems we have received. On our website, you can read them in English, Spanish and in French at Artworks
It takes a couple of months before your works can be published online. We need to follow different steps to be able to update our online galleries. First, all the poems must be translated in English before being submitted to our AiA poetry committee, which will choose the best artworks. Additionally, during our visits, we take a huge amount of photographs that must be selected, classified and archived. Each picture must be indexed with keywords and captions, in a giant library already containing over 120 000 pictures. This task requires a huge amount of time.
The AiA World Art Book is a global project and we will only publish it once schools in every one of the 192 countries have participated to our programs. We estimate that 2 more years are still necessary to achieve this goal (end 2008).
Anyone can pay with whatever currency is available with your creditcard or Paypal account. During the transaction, Paypal will convert the Euros to your currency. If you want to know how much the current rate is of your currency, use the currency converter on the bottom of the donation page.
White-skinned people suffer more easily from the sun than dark-skinned people, whose skin has more natural protection against the sun. You often see white tourists totally red at the end of the day because they were burnt by the sun... their skin is much more sensitive to sun rays.
Education is mandatory, and there are some mechanisms that allow the government to control that such form of exploitation doesn't exist, and that all the children go to school. However there may exist some, as it is impossible to ensure that 100% of the children in Belgium effectively go to school everyday, furthermore considering all the migrations that exist nowadays.
There are many reasons why some African children don't wear shoes:
It is more comfortable to go around barefoot, as the weather is hot and humid and they don't want to confine their feet in closed shoes. Some African Olympic athletes even prefer to run barefoot during races, because it is how they are used to run, and they perform much better that way.
Shoes can get wet and damaged because of tropical rain ... it is better to go barefoot under the rain, or to wear plastic slippers
Their parents have little money and dedicate their home budget to other priorities than shoes, such as: schooling, food.
Well that's a creative idea! I don't think any central bank has had this idea before ;-). However, we have seen coins with different shapes: hexagonal shapes, and also coins with holes.
Yes we have cars! We also have Japanese cars! I can't recall any country without cars. Of course, some countries have regions where it isn't possible to use cars. But even the smallest country, the smallest island has some.
Well, everyone can write poetry. Some cultures have a more poetic sensibility. Some cultures maintain oral traditions... which mean that traditions and history are mainly transmitted from generation to generation by word of mouth. Many of these cultures are found in Africa and in Oceania.
In Brazil we have worked with Indian children living in the Amazon; they don't use pens or pencils. However, they express themselves orally and we showed them how to translate their feelings and opinions on the paper, through art, so that other children of the world can still read them, even if they are not at an earshot from them.
That would be quite a crisis! However, fortunately enough, Belgium is surrounded with other countries, so I guess Belgium would import potatoes from them or switch to other type of food (pasta, rice.)
Some children eat meat and some don't: they are vegetarian; available vegetables vary from a country to another, from a climate to another. Starchy food all-around the world is: potato (mostly in Europe), rice (mostly in Asia), pasta, different kinds of roots (cassava, yam,) (in Asia, Africa and Latin America), breadfruit (mostly in Africa and Oceania).
Children all over the world are very similar in a sense. All they want is to play, to be loved and to discover new things. Each culture and social environment does that in a different way, but they all keep this aspiration to happiness.
Anthony Asael and Stephanie Rabemiafara are the founders and leading photographers and travelers of Art in All of Us. They have built a strong team and multicultural network of important NGO's and Foundations around them. Both have strong economical and managerial background including extended foreign trade professional experiences. Both decided to give up their previous life to dedicate their next years to the mission of AiA.
Art is a universal language and we are really struck by similarities between some artworks from totally different countries!
As far as everyday communication is concerned, we can speak at least 4 languages that are spread almost throughout the world because they were the former imperialist countries' languages: English, French, Portuguese and Spanish. They allow us to communicate with you and other children. When such direct communication isn't possible, then we communicate through the intermediary of a friend or a teacher, who translates for us into the local language.
A very difficult question that both children and adults all over the world keep asking us... I don't think we can pick up one or two countries... especially when we spend such a short time in every country. Furthermore each country is different, and has its own attractions...
However - and keep this as a secret - ... if we had to pick only one country, it would be Brazil...
It is true that we travel at a very fast pace. However, whenever tired, children smiles, spontaneity and creativity give us the necessary energy to keep on going.
