HHS Students Share the Gift of Art With Teens in Tanzania

For the second straight year, Harrison High School fine art students participated in the inspirational Memory Project, benefitting youth in Tanzania.

The Memory Project is a nonprofit organization that provides a way for art students across the country to connect with students of all ages across the world who have faced substantial challenges, such as neglect, abuse, loss of parents, violence, and extreme poverty.

Last year, the Harrison students were visually introduced to children and teens in a residential community in Peru and this year the children were from Tanzania. Under the guidance of teachers Tracy Gilman and Lisa Monti, Esha Jan was the coordinator for the project that involved creating 25 portraits for the teens.

“I wanted to continue with this project to help kids feel valued and important,” said Esha. “I wanted to be able to bring smiles to the kids’ faces and to have them forget for a moment about the challenges that they are facing.”

Esha, who had only taken Studio in Art at Harrison High School, adopted this program as part of her CAS (Creativity, Action & Service) project connected to the International Baccalaureate Diploma. She presented the project to the art classes at the high school and many of the students were excited to participate.

“I was a little shy and scared at first when I was presenting to the classes,” she said, “but I met a lot of amazing people. We also had two bake sales (to raise funds as a donation for the teens in Tanzania) which was an amazing experience as it pushed me to interact with many people from around the school.”

The Harrison High School art students received a full page color print as well as a digital photo and were asked to create a portrait of the Tanzanian teen using any medium they would like. Once the portrait was completed, the HHS artistic photo, the original photo, and a photo of the artist were sent back to the student in a plastic sleeve allowing them to keep this memory forever. For many of these students, it was the first picture they had seen of themselves.

“Ms. Jan acted as the coordinator of the project for her peers and did a fantastic job of communicating with our organization in order to make this happen,” said Ben Schumaker, founder and director of the Memory Project. “We just delivered the portraits to the children in Tanzania and they enjoyed receiving them tremendously. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that your school’s art department has provided them with personal gifts to last a lifetime.”

Esha echoed that response from Mr. Schumaker. “All of the hard work that went into the project was paid back by the smiles that we all were able to bring to their faces.”