MD Week 3: The Pink House Respect Puzzle

Theme of the month: Human Rights

Focus of week 2: Respect. 

So I've just come to the end of my third week here in Medina with the wonderful girls at Meninadança's Pink House and this week we have been focusing on respect:  respect for self and respect for one another.

In the art sessions we returned to one of my favourite symbols for community, the patchwork quilt, by inviting the girls to create this giant puzzle where their personal pieces are connected into a single whole with phrases they wrote about respect, visualising how we can live comfortably side by side in supportive communities where we are each respected as the unique individual we are.

We discussed different areas of our lives where we may or may not feel respected: privacy, family, God, faith, opinions, ideas, emotions, personal things, body, friends, culture.

Project Proposal:  

1. For each girl to create one or more puzzle piece with each piece representing one area of her life from the list above, using colour and collage to represent how much she does feel respected in that area and how much she does not feel respected.  Using beads and buttons to represent specific positive or negative memories, thoughts, feelings or people who are connected to that part of her life.  

2. To unite the very different puzzle pieces into one complete whole by positioning phrases about respect across them.

Project Aim:

1. By creating individual puzzle pieces the girls were being invited to reflect on personal thoughts, feelings and experiences about respect in specific areas of their lives.  Space and time being given to the negative as well as the positive.  

2. Joining their pieces together the girls were invited to notice how their own pieces, different to those of their friends, reflect their individual personalities and perspectives.  In linking them into one whole puzzle piece connected with phrases they were invited to reflect on how respect unites individuals into communities.  

PROCESS

1.  Staff role-play presentation 

To prepare for the workshop Rachel, Dani, Aline, Cristina and I created a demo puzzle, each picking one word and creating a puzzle piece reflecting our feelings and experiences of respect in that area.  We then joined them together into one small puzzle, united by the single phrase 'respect us'.   As an introduction to the theme of the week and the art project, we acted out a role play as if we were in one of the girls conversation circles and explained the meaning of our pieces to one another, with the hope that we'd be modelling for the girls ways of using their collage choices to express themselves.

"Respect us" / (Right) My piece represents my feelings and experiences of respect in the area of opinions.  When I don't feel like my opinion is heard and respected it can make me very angry, represented by the red.  The three red beads represent specific  memories of interactions where I did not feel my opinion was respected and the flower material beneath indicates that although those experiences were difficult that I learned from them and grew as a person.  Blue represents the calm and peace that comes from feeling that my opinion is respected, the eyes saying how that makes me feel seen and the heart, that when respected I feel loved.  The green button represents my Dad who always encouraged my siblings and I to voice our opinions, teaching us that he valued our opinions and valued us.  The detailed cream material overlapping the red and the blue reflects that some relationships are more complicated and overlap the positive and negative, with the same person at times respecting our opinions and at other times not.

2. Preparing individual puzzle pieces: Each girl cut out a puzzle piece template from paper and used it to trace as many puzzle pieces as she liked on cardboard.  She then out her cardboard pieces and chose a word about respect which she wrote on the back of the piece alongside her name. Choosing various colours of paint, magazine and material scraps, beads, feathers and buttons, she created a collaged image on the piece to explore her feelings, thoughts, memories and experiences about respect.

 2. Noticing her individuality:  Some girls created one piece, others one or two.  As the girls chose their own ways of decorating to expressing their ideas and feelings about respect we noticed their different personalities emerging through their pieces.

3. Uniting all the pieces into one giant Pink House Puzzle:  Our original idea was to invite the girls to work in small groups to link their puzzle pieces together with phrases chosen collectively within those groups.  However, in the process of making what actually happened was that the girls wrote and placed their phrases about respect individually on their own pieces, which they then added to the growing group puzzle.  I encouraged the girls to position their own pieces, helping me and one another in the building of the puzzle, this collaborative work being another symbol of our all having respect for one another within a co-operative community.  Some girls were not available or not comfortable with participating in this part of the project, but with those that were I was touched to watch their hands busily passing tape and puzzle pieces too and fro, holding, poking and securing each part into its place, helping one another to create one united whole.

Great work girls, and with a beautiful end result! :-)

If you are able to, support the girls and the project by signing up to be a project partner here, it would be hugely appreciated.

 (left) Love, union, respect, peace, family, hope, life / 

(Right) To give respect in order to be respected

 (Left) I want to have privacy / (Right) Who knows "knocking on heaven's door" peace is going to appear?

 (left) Respect human beings. This is what respect is for me. Respect. / (Right) Love and affection.

 "How I wish there was respect for everyone in the world."

Outra semana de trabalho fantástico desse grupo das meninas incríveis.  Obrigada a todas para todo a trabalho boa e para dividir uma semana tão boa. 

:-)