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Raising Darfur awareness in 12 square inches
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BY: CYNTHIA DETTELBACH Editor
How do you get your arms around a concept as unfathomable as genocide?
Especially if, in some instances, your arms are small and you are young and innocent? For creators of the Tents of Hope project who want to raise awareness of the genocide taking place in Darfur, Sudan, the answer is simple: raise that awareness one 12"x12" painted canvas at a time.
“One person, no matter how small, can make a difference in the world,” maintains Melissa Becker, an elementary school principal in Petaluma, Calif. Becker appears in the Darfur documentary “Tents: The Patchwork Project.”
To help make a difference, Becker’s students have decorated 12"x12" canvases, 452 to be exact, containing messages of peace, hope and caring. The California children, like youngsters involved in a similar project in Cleveland, have painted rainbows and peace doves, flowers and smiling faces.
The California squares were sent to school-age children in Darfuri refugee tent camps in Eastern Chad. Using the reverse side of the squares, the children from Darfur have painted what they’re most familiar with: soldiers with guns pointed at them, burning houses, brutal beatings.
The idea, explains “Tents: The Patchwork Project” filmmaker Francesca Roveda, was to video the Darfur children painting the squares before bringing the squares back to the U.S. Then the Reliable Tent and Tipi Co., in partnership with the Tents of Hope Project, planned to sew the patches together to create a special tent that would draw greater attention to the cause.
Unfortunately, current events intervened in 2008 when Chad became the site of a rebel uprising. Those planning to bring out the artwork were lucky to leave alive; the art they had to leave behind.
Scenes from Chad appear in Roveda’s powerful 18-minute film. It is the first of three related films she is making. The second is on three genocides: the Holocaust, Rwanda and Darfur. A third film is tentatively titled “Art and Activism.”
Tents of Hope is a community-based project now underway in 200 cities. Participating groups include religious institutions, schools and universities, and civic and arts organizations. The money these entities raise from the painting of the squares and other events surrounding the project will go toward helping some of the 2.5 million Darfurians routed from their homes and currently living in squalid tent cities.
I met “Tents: The Patchwork Project” filmmaker Roveda at B’nai Jeshurun Congregation here as she was setting up her equipment to film Rabbi Stephen Weiss for her upcoming documentaries.
Although Roveda, who is Italian, has several Jewish friends, her first real connection to Judaism was forged in making her documentary. “I’ve come to see what your (Jewish) hearts and souls are like,” she admits. “I tell Rabbi Weiss, ‘You’re my rabbi!’”
Weiss has been in the forefront of the Tents of Hope project in Cleveland. He is also national chair of synagogue involvement for a November rally in Washington, D.C. His congregation’s colorful tent, covered in 12ninch-square painted canvases, stands proudly in the shul’s atrium/lobby. It will join an anticipated 500 tents to be displayed on the National Mall.
“Our goal is to raise public awareness,” explains Weiss. “We also want to send a message to Washington that the crisis in Darfur must be addressed. Pressure must be brought to bear on China,” which sends arms to Sudan and buys its oil. UN peacekeeping forces, he adds, must play a more active role in stopping the atrocities the Sudanese government’s Janjaweed militias commit against their country’s ethnic African communities.
Why, with so many other pressing issues, are Jews so heavily involved with the Darfur issue?
“It is a Jewish imperative that as a people persecuted and discriminated against ourselves, we have a moral obligation to raise our voices,” maintains Weiss. We have to protest on behalf of people similarly persecuted simply for who they are. (While pursued and pursuer in Darfur are both Muslim, the pursued are black Muslims with a history and heritage that differs from their attackers.)
In addition to B’nai Jeshurun, other local Jewish participants in Tents of Hope include Park Synagogue, Shaarey Tikvah, Temple Israel Ner Tamid, Beth El-Heights Synagogue, Kol HaLev, Congregation Bethaynu, Cleveland Hillel, the Jewish Community Federation and the Cleveland Jewish News. The Cleveland-based effort is coordinated with officials at InterAct, a local interfaith group.
Another important local player is the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage. From July 15 n 27, it will display about 10 tents contributed by various synagogue and church groups. The museum will also hold a series of related events, including tent decorating and writing letters to legislators.
Although, Roveda, a ceramic artist-turned-filmmaker, has been making documentaries only since 2000, her artistry and compassion are clearly evident in “Tents: The Patchwork Project.” As the film opens, the screen is black, except for a thin strip in the middle where we see images of the displaced Darfur residents. The black blankness gradually dissolves as the resilient-seeming Darfuris, resplendent in their colorful garments, fill the screen.
It is a portent, one hopes, of these quiet, proud people returning once again to their homeland, where they can begin to rebuild their lives. This time, in the absence of violence.
cdettelbach@cjn.org
Especially if, in some instances, your arms are small and you are young and innocent? For creators of the Tents of Hope project who want to raise awareness of the genocide taking place in Darfur, Sudan, the answer is simple: raise that awareness one 12"x12" painted canvas at a time.
“One person, no matter how small, can make a difference in the world,” maintains Melissa Becker, an elementary school principal in Petaluma, Calif. Becker appears in the Darfur documentary “Tents: The Patchwork Project.”
To help make a difference, Becker’s students have decorated 12"x12" canvases, 452 to be exact, containing messages of peace, hope and caring. The California children, like youngsters involved in a similar project in Cleveland, have painted rainbows and peace doves, flowers and smiling faces.
The California squares were sent to school-age children in Darfuri refugee tent camps in Eastern Chad. Using the reverse side of the squares, the children from Darfur have painted what they’re most familiar with: soldiers with guns pointed at them, burning houses, brutal beatings.
The idea, explains “Tents: The Patchwork Project” filmmaker Francesca Roveda, was to video the Darfur children painting the squares before bringing the squares back to the U.S. Then the Reliable Tent and Tipi Co., in partnership with the Tents of Hope Project, planned to sew the patches together to create a special tent that would draw greater attention to the cause.
Unfortunately, current events intervened in 2008 when Chad became the site of a rebel uprising. Those planning to bring out the artwork were lucky to leave alive; the art they had to leave behind.
Scenes from Chad appear in Roveda’s powerful 18-minute film. It is the first of three related films she is making. The second is on three genocides: the Holocaust, Rwanda and Darfur. A third film is tentatively titled “Art and Activism.”
Tents of Hope is a community-based project now underway in 200 cities. Participating groups include religious institutions, schools and universities, and civic and arts organizations. The money these entities raise from the painting of the squares and other events surrounding the project will go toward helping some of the 2.5 million Darfurians routed from their homes and currently living in squalid tent cities.
I met “Tents: The Patchwork Project” filmmaker Roveda at B’nai Jeshurun Congregation here as she was setting up her equipment to film Rabbi Stephen Weiss for her upcoming documentaries.
Although Roveda, who is Italian, has several Jewish friends, her first real connection to Judaism was forged in making her documentary. “I’ve come to see what your (Jewish) hearts and souls are like,” she admits. “I tell Rabbi Weiss, ‘You’re my rabbi!’”
Weiss has been in the forefront of the Tents of Hope project in Cleveland. He is also national chair of synagogue involvement for a November rally in Washington, D.C. His congregation’s colorful tent, covered in 12ninch-square painted canvases, stands proudly in the shul’s atrium/lobby. It will join an anticipated 500 tents to be displayed on the National Mall.
“Our goal is to raise public awareness,” explains Weiss. “We also want to send a message to Washington that the crisis in Darfur must be addressed. Pressure must be brought to bear on China,” which sends arms to Sudan and buys its oil. UN peacekeeping forces, he adds, must play a more active role in stopping the atrocities the Sudanese government’s Janjaweed militias commit against their country’s ethnic African communities.
Why, with so many other pressing issues, are Jews so heavily involved with the Darfur issue?
“It is a Jewish imperative that as a people persecuted and discriminated against ourselves, we have a moral obligation to raise our voices,” maintains Weiss. We have to protest on behalf of people similarly persecuted simply for who they are. (While pursued and pursuer in Darfur are both Muslim, the pursued are black Muslims with a history and heritage that differs from their attackers.)
In addition to B’nai Jeshurun, other local Jewish participants in Tents of Hope include Park Synagogue, Shaarey Tikvah, Temple Israel Ner Tamid, Beth El-Heights Synagogue, Kol HaLev, Congregation Bethaynu, Cleveland Hillel, the Jewish Community Federation and the Cleveland Jewish News. The Cleveland-based effort is coordinated with officials at InterAct, a local interfaith group.
Another important local player is the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage. From July 15 n 27, it will display about 10 tents contributed by various synagogue and church groups. The museum will also hold a series of related events, including tent decorating and writing letters to legislators.
Although, Roveda, a ceramic artist-turned-filmmaker, has been making documentaries only since 2000, her artistry and compassion are clearly evident in “Tents: The Patchwork Project.” As the film opens, the screen is black, except for a thin strip in the middle where we see images of the displaced Darfur residents. The black blankness gradually dissolves as the resilient-seeming Darfuris, resplendent in their colorful garments, fill the screen.
It is a portent, one hopes, of these quiet, proud people returning once again to their homeland, where they can begin to rebuild their lives. This time, in the absence of violence.
cdettelbach@cjn.org
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