Projects
Burma Art Therapy Project
We have been doing groups since last January at Chapel Hill High, Frank Porter Graham Elementary, and with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants in Raleigh.. The teachers have been very receptive to the groups and have witnessed how the students have used art to express their dreams, challenges and past experiences.
Many of the children in our groups have spent their whole lives in refugee camps and most have had very little formal schooling. Art is a shared language that helps children communicate, build friendship skills, and address issues of acculturation. The images we have seen in these groups are a combination of cultures, landscapes, and symbols of war and peace. Art therapy is a safe way for the kids to talk about their past experiences and the trauma that they have both witnessed and experienced.
Drawing by one of the students in an art therapy group in the schools.
He says this is about “war in his country.”
Burma has been in a state of civil strife for the majority of the past half century. The ethnic, political, and religious persecution plaguing Burma has resulted in an average of 10,000 deaths per year for each of the past forty years. The U.S. provides refuge to fewer than 2,000 people from Burma annually; a significant portion of this population resettles to the Triangle area. Most of them are women and children.
We are writing to you today to ask if you can help the Institute of Art Therapy continue the work we are doing with Burmese refugees in the Triangle.
If you are able to assist financially, we would like to be able to expand our services to meet the needs of the many children who are referred to us that we are currently unable to meet. Your $50 or $100 donation will allow these groups to continue to provide a valuable service to these children. Please consider making a tax deductible donation to The Institute of Art Therapy. The fiscal agent for this art therapy program is the Exchange Clubs’ Family Center which is a tax exempt community organization that is committed to strengthening area families and preventing child abuse through family support and parent education programs.
Please make checks out to:
The Art Therapy Institute at the Exchange Clubs’ Family Center, Federal Id # 58-1978668
762 Ninth St #631
Durham NC 27705
THANK YOU For your support!
Clinicians for this project: Eva Miller, Kristin Linton, Jodi Aker, Ilene Sperling
Interns: Caitlin Murray and Hillary Rubesin
In the News:
Chapel Hill News article
Carolina Public Health article
