On Saturday April 22, 2017, we conducted our very first t-shirt designing workshops with refugee kids from Mynmar. Saturday is the kids tutoring day when they have voluteers to come in and tutor them. All of them went to lunch whereas the CreaTee team came in and arranged tables for the workshop. We decided the best way to run these workshops was in small batches. We have always found that twenty is our magic number. It is small enough that we can pay attention to each children. Since there were more older kids in this group we did not need to have too many volunteers.
Although they were in Year 4 academically, it is not reflected by their age. Many of them are of older age in comparison to the usual Year 4 student since some of them never did have any form education early on.
As we were preparing, we got the curious eyes looking at us, not really sure what activity will take place. Their headmaster placed them in 3 different group so that we could hand them their CreaTee kit.
The youngest participant for the day was an eight year old girl. Since there was an absentee, she took over the slot.
We had to placed them in two different space. The older kids taking over the room while the youngers ones in the library. Since they just moved to this new locations, things were still in boxes, so it was a bit cramped. But the kids didn't seemed to mind. On their mind all they wanted to do was design their own t-shirt.
The older kids in the classroom seemed a bit quiet. Not that they weren't excited just that they were fully concentrating on the task. They were giving it their full attention. Boys being boys, came up with a brilliant idea to make it football theme t-shirt. They had their favorite number at the back. Their own football team!
All of them came up with different ways of expressing themselves. It is always amazing when we are able to see what kind of art each individual comes up with.
Our volunteers were also amazing. We have not met some of them before but they came out and wanted to participate in the workshops.
After about an hour and a half, we were ready to wrap it up, but the kids then moved to the other room where the t-shirt was being dried and starting doing touch up on their tees. Art is a never ending process!
All in all, we had a great time with the kids from the learning center. They were warm and truly appreciated the activity that we had installed for them. We hope in some ways we managed to bring joy on a Saturday afternoon. Next workshop is with the Rohingyas.