Bridge to Bahia Self-Portrait Project
Last October, as the Bridge to Bahia project was beginning to function efficiently, Mrs. Claudia Sobral, one of our parents, came up with a great idea to kickstart the direct rapport between AOSR and the ICBIE. The children of both communities would prepare self-portraits and answer a few standard questions about themselves, then the material would be exchanged between the communities, and public exhibitions of the artworks would be held in both Rome and Salvador.
Pietro and Marlene enlisted the services of ICBIE’s best artists, Julio and Bigode, who gathered a large group of young kids from the nearby Minha vò flor orphanage and brought them to the ICBIE for a day of art lessons and self-portrait drawing.
Each student was photographed, and so were all the artworks. Each student answered the background questions, and a large archive was formed, ready to be exchanged.
Name: Jalisson Aldera Santos
Age: 8 years
What is your favorite music? Arrocha
What do you want to be when you grow up? A Professor
What is your favorite food? Meat and rice
What is your favorite musical instrument? Percussion
Likewise, AOSR’s elementary art teacher, Phebe Cosentino, conducted the same project at AOSR.
Then, as the December holidays were looming, Claudia had yet another great idea. She proposed that the most artistically inclined high schoolers on the Bridge to Bahia team be asked to design holiday greeting cards, using the self-portraits. Our talented eleventh grader, Leilei Xu, made a beautiful design, and within two weeks, we had sold nearly seven hundred cards, and the ICBIE had gained another €700 donation!
The first public showing took place in Rome, at the AOSR Mayfair on May 12, 2007, where roughly a thousand people were able to admire the self-portraits and learn about the Bridge to Bahia project and the ICBIE. And of course, the donations box was generously stuffed.
Pietro will be organizing a showing in Salvador as soon as he returns from his European travels.
We are convinced that this project has been highly effective on all levels, bringing together the communities and offering precious fund-raising opportunities; hopefully, other programs of aid and understanding can adopt this plan for their initiatives.