Art for Gorillas

AoC Joins Rwanda’s National Tree Planting Week

Julie — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:00:12 +0000

According to Rwanda’s Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Stanislas Kamanzi, almost 20 million trees - both forest species and agroforest species - will be planted this week throughout the country. This morning, AoC’s Eric, Innocent, Valerie, and I loaded the truck with seedlings from the AoC garden and headed to Kinigi to meet our students and plant trees.

Earlier this year, our students planted seedlings outside of their school. Please view earlier post.

Minister Kamanzi is at Gishwati Forest today where efforts are being made to recover lost forest due to human encroachment, deforestation and small-scale farming.

Planting more trees with the help from my dog, Ibyiza.

Rwanda will be attending the Copenhagen Summit for Climate Change in December.

We’re finished for the day with 100 additional seedlings in the ground.

Dr. Jean Felix from Gorilla Doctors Comes To Class

Julie — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:00:51 +0000

Dr. Jean Felix Kinani is MGVP’s Rwandan in-country field veterinarian. Today he visits AoC’s class at Nyabitsinde Primary School.

A student volunteer pretends to be a sick or injured mountain gorilla as Dr. Jean Felix and Innocent prepare the kids for what’s about to happen next.

Wearing a mask to help prevent disease transmission, Dr. Jean Felix has darted his pretend patient with anesthesia. From here the gorilla will be treated or a snare will be removed. Usually a reversal is administered and the patient awakens quickly after a procedure.

Pretending mops and brooms are trees and bamboo, the students act out a possible scene in the forest while the vets attempt to help the endangered mountain gorillas.

Thank you Drs. Magdalena, Jan, and Jean Felix for sharing with our young Rwandan students what you do to help the mountain gorillas. Your expertise and dedication is remarkable.

Dr. Jan from Gorilla Doctors Comes To Class

Julie — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:00:58 +0000

Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project’s Rwanda-based vets take time out of their busy schedule to visit our students and shed more light on HOW and WHY they treat the endangered mountain gorillas. Dr. Jan Ramer, MGVP Regional Veterinary Manager, is here today with AoC’s Rushubi Primary School students. Like Dr. Magdalena who visited a different set of kids previously, these gorilla vets encourage our young students to work very hard in school so that perhaps they can be vets one day. Let’s hope!!!

Dr. Jan gives a student a chance to experience what it is like to hold a dart gun. She reiterates that the vets do not carry guns with bullets - only guns with medicine!

It’s a lot more difficult in the forest to prepare the syringe and dart gun so that the patients don’t see - let alone to fire the gun with the syringe hitting the correct spot on the gorilla.

After a very exciting and informative talk with the kids, Dr. Jan settles in for computer work while the students paint their papier mache mountain gorillas. What a great class! Thanks Dr. Jan for your visit. Please come back next year with a new group of aspiring naturalists and vets.

MGVP’s Dr. Jean Felix next!

Dr. Magdalena from Gorilla Doctors Comes To Class

Julie — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:00:53 +0000

Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project’s Rwanda-based vets take time out of their busy schedule to visit our students and shed more light on HOW and WHY they treat the endangered mountain gorillas. Dr. Magdalena, an expert on wild animal health care, talks with the kids and lets the kids practice with some of the tools she uses to treat gorillas in the nearby forest.

AoC’s Innocent and Eric stand by to translate and help Dr. Magdalena as she opens up her medical kit which includes all necessary equipment needed for treating sick or injured gorillas in Volcanoes National Park - quite a bit of equipment to be carrying up the steep volcanoes.

Dr. Magdalena prepares a flying syringe with either antibiotics or anesthesia. Innocent is translating her English to Kinyarwanda.

Innocent pretends to be a tree as Dr. Magdalena and a student prepare to shoot the dart gun containing the prepared syringe out the classroom door. We all made sure no one would be walking by! Kids screech with excitement with the sound of the dart gun and the launching of the syringe. They also get a much better idea of how the Gorilla Docs work in the forest!

Dr. Jan is next to enlighten the kids. Please tune in next time.

Standing Room Only

Julie — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:05:06 +0000

AoC’s Parents as Partners Open House at Rushubi Primary School.
All photos courtesy of Molly Feltner.

Wow, oh wow, we had a great turn out at our second open house! We didn’t even offer (nor will we ever) banana beer or per diems!

A future student? We are hopeful that this young child’s brother or sister–who was an AoC student, now a ‘graduate’–is handing down lessons to her such as the basic habits of personal hygiene, respect for oneself and others, and a sense of wonderment about the world they live in.

Gifts were given to students who received top marks on the final exam, who had perfect class attendance, and for putting forth exemplary effort throughout the school year. The woman pictured above, on the far right, stands proud after her daughter receives an award in all three categories.

After Dative’s poignant letter she read aloud, I gave her a huge hug.

The teamwork of Eric, Innocent, Molly, Valerie, Phocas, Amahoro Tours driver Emmanuel and assistant Hassan, teachers, and students was remarkable. We simply can’t do what we’ve been trying to do if not for the commitment of this dedicated group of people.

Gorillas, Etiquette, Nature, Hygiene and Manirabizi’s Poem

Julie — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:00:03 +0000

All photos courtesy of Molly Feltner. Manirabizi’s mother was the first parent to show up with her child at Nyabitsinde Primary School for Art of Conservation’s Parents as Partners Open House. We invited her into Manirabizi’s AoC classroom to begin looking through an envelope of the art work he had done throughout the year.

If only one parent of one of our 50 students show up–I thought to myself–then AoC’s team effort would seem worth every moment. It was great to see Manirabizi’s mother responding to her son’s work.

Next arrived Nyiranjijuke and her mother.

As the classroom fills with students and parents, Innocent directs the group to take the time to look through the children’s work and around the classroom at the Word Wall, maps, artwork. Everyone enjoys snacks and juice.

This photograph illustrates so much of what we’ve been hoping for… communication.

I nearly melt listening to Manirabizi’s poem he wrote in honor of his ‘other’ parent, me. With concentrated effort, he recited his poem aloud in English with Innocent translating in Kinyarwanda. This is his poem.

Thank You Our Parent
Let us give our thanks
For our parent
Who loves us children.
Dear teacher parent,
You help us all sides!
You give us all skills.
You give us knowledge.
Not only knowledge
But also school materials.
You help us about tourism
From you, I know our country’s capital
Kigali.
From you I am good at art.
Of course, wherever I go,
Never forget you!
My name is Manirabizi. P. 5, Nyabitsinde Primary School. Thank you again.

Parents As Partners Open House

Julie — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:00:45 +0000

2009’s conservation classes are wrapping up. January 2010, we’ll begin with a new group of children and their classroom teachers. But until then, the AoC team and I are determinedly revving up for one last effort to bring home what we have taught and involved our students, their teachers, their fellow classmates, and their families in - at our forthcoming Parents as Partners Open Houses.

In retrospect, I wish we had started with a parents open house in addition to finishing our year with another. I see all too clearly a lack of communication between parent and child, an absence of responsibility and compassion, a complacency and waiting for the next hand out. It was suggested more than once to us that parents would be more likely to attend the open house which begins at 9:00 am if we were to serve beer… I responded with something like there is NOT a chance in …., but we will offer fruit juice!

Change does begin with an individual and it does take time, but in a place like Rwanda with its relatively recent draconian history and the human population so high and such little land space, I feel we must do all we can to get our messages about health and conservation to our students and their families.

Each student writes his or her name on the invitation seen above - with the invitation in both English and Kinyarwanda - and takes it home.

Below, our invitation to park officials, district leaders, teachers, and more.

Eric and Innocent are working on their five minute speeches they will present to parents and invited guests which will stress the need to work together, as a team, if we want to make real change.

Wish us luck!

The Making (& Protecting) of Mountain Gorillas

Julie — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 19:36:11 +0000

To love, protect, and feel compassion for a mountain gorilla is to really see a mountain gorilla - in all its shapes and forms. Our students have always been told that they should protect mountain gorillas - their immediate neighbors in Volcanoes National Park. Being told is one thing, but to understand and develop feelings of compassion is another. Art of Conservation’s approach toward inspiring young people to really care for each other, animals, and the entire natural world is through dialogue, exploration, and art.

Please view our video from two class sessions of creating papier mache mountain gorillas.

Take The Time To Care, Video.

AoC student Job proudly displays mountain gorillas he and his classmates made. Photo by Molly Feltner.

Drawing Surprise Creatures

Julie — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:00:47 +0000

Ana, thanks for your recent comment. We are happy you liked the safari through time lessons.

After taking a quick look at amazing shapes, sizes, and colors of birds, frogs, and butterflies, we asked students to let their imagination run and create surprise creatures.

One student draws a head, another student a body, and last the legs and feet.

She must have some creative and funny thoughts going on - let’s see what comes out on paper.

Creatures #1.

Creatures #2.

Art for Gorillas is taking a brief break - off to the Egyptian desert - back with you mid-October.

Thank You Peter! Plus Birds, Frogs, and Butterflies

Julie — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:00:59 +0000

Peter, thank you very much for your September 28th donation of $110! One of the brilliant things about Wildlife Direct is that the blogs allow us to get our messages out there and raise funds while we continue to work at the grassroots level. Thanks so much for tuning in to the blog, Peter. We greatly appreciate your much needed support. Soon, Rwanda’s schoolchildren will be let out of school for the year. They take their national exams in October and then return in January 2010 for a new academic year. As we follow the government run public school calendar, Art of Conservation’s 2009 classes are quickly coming to a close as well. For this week’s class, AoC students take their final exam which covers the year’s conservation lessons, and then look and listen to the sights and sounds of birds, frogs, and butterflies.

Kids gasp when they see the abundance of bird species shown in bird field guides. We look for Rwandan birds like ibis, turaco, bee-eater, robin-chat, and sunbirds.

“Bird Songs From Around The World” by Les Beletsky, an audio book that delighted students, features songs of 200 birds from around the world.

Our classroom is filling with the beautiful songs of birds and frogs. Here, the boys are using a thing called an “Identiflyer Guide” with a “Frogs SongCard.”

We discuss bird and nature watching etiquette and try out binoculars.

More oohs and aahs while looking at “Butterflies Of The World.”

Again, thank you Peter.