Message from Sara Green, Executive Director, ART, Art for Refugees in Transition, www.artforrefugees.org, info@artforrefugees.org:

April 25, 2005
Greetings from the magical country of Colombia!

It has been a wonderful and fruitful three weeks. I arrived in Colombia with James Rexroad, the photojournalist whose breathtaking photos from the refugee camps in Thailand are on the website. The plan for this trip was to start a program in a displaced community outside of Popayan, a small city in the south of the country, in partnership with the University of Cauca. However, once we arrived in Colombia, we decided that it would be best to begin ART’s work in Bogotá before moving to a more remote location like Popayan. ART’s program in Popayan will begin January, 2006.

ART is beginning to work in a very poor section of Bogotá called barrio El Tintal in the localidad de Kennedy. The community is a mixture of poor and displaced, but mostly displaced - some are second or third generation displaced. There is a superb school there which is run by the Fundacion Educacional Neuvo Retiro with which we will be working, and the community is truly excited about the program. They even have a community center that is empty and just waiting to be used.

It was through the help of the original contact who brought me to Colombia, Cecilia Mejia, and the Caring for Colombia Foundation, that we found a wonderful woman, Maria Rueda, who will be working for ART in Colombia.

With Maria’s help, we met with the Dean of the School of Social Science at the Universidad de los Andes, the “Harvard” of Colombia, and they have agreed to have their students work with ART on the implementation, management and evaluation of the Program. The students have a one semester practicum – internship – and will devote 10 to 12 hours a week of time to the project. We will have students from the Anthropology, Music, Education and Psychology departments. I just submitted the proposal to the University, which they will distribute to the students, and I will return in June for two weeks to interview and select probably 5 to 10 students; this would enable the center to remain open at least five days a week, all day. The Program will then begin in August when the semester commences and I will come back to help train the students and oversee the implementation of the Program.

Since ART is an American NGO, with no official ties to the Colombian government, we thought it would be best to establish a relationship with some of the governmental agencies here. Everyone has been incredibly welcoming and interested in ART’s work. This past Friday, we met with the head of the Red de la Solidaridad, the governmental agency which supports the displaced and provides services for them - healthcare, food, education, etc. I was hoping that they would agree to partner with us on the first program, if for nothing more than to have their logo on our literature and to use their name to raise money - it adds great credibility to have them as a partner.

The Director of the Bogotá office was delighted to hear about ART's work and the upcoming program in Tintal. They are not working in that neighborhood, but would like to. So, in addition to now being a part of their NGO network which works with the displaced, they offered to provide us with food for up to 300 elderly people who will be involved in the program and donate clothing for the children. The synchronicity of how things are falling into place is amazing.

At the beginning of the trip we met a great group of people here in Bogotá who run a production company, Netibo, which does work for National Geographic. They are very interested in ART’s work and want to do a documentary on the whole process of how we put a project together and make it work – we will start with a video diary of sorts. We need to raise the money to buy a camera when we are back in NY, or find someone who has a professional video camera they want to donate to ART.

And finally, we have had great interest from many of the UN agencies here as well; UNHCR and UNDP, in particular who will likely partner with us on the implementation of the next program in Colombia.

With all of this excitement, we now take on the largest task of all, raising funds. Expenses for the Program include a camera, film, Maria’s salary, musical instruments, recording equipment to record the songs and stories, travel, and many other expenses.

Colombia is a magical place and ART’s work speaks for itself; I can see this by how it is so well received - by everyone, everywhere we go. We have met unbelievable people who have shown incredible hospitality and receptiveness to ART’s concept.

I hope that you can share in the excitement as ART takes it programs global. It is hard to believe that only a few years ago ART was a little seed of an idea that has now grown into a viable organization.

I look forward to hearing from all of you.
Best,
Sara

Sara Green
Executive Director
ART
Art for Refugees in Transition
www.artforrefugees.org
info@artforrefugees.org