face.africa update!

One of Soulfari Kenya's art initiatives, face.africa, has been very busy! On June 1 the portraits were displayed in an art gallery at SFK's official launch party. Artists, community members, and friends of SFK were there to show their support for this project and for the organization as a whole.

In July, the 2007 travelers were present while Josie Mai, SFK's executive director and the woman behind the face.africa project, presented the original artwork to the children at Villa Teag. 60 of the 70 kids who were photographed during the 2006 trip were there to receive their gift.

The portraits were presented one at a time and all of the kids screamed the name of the portrait owner as they came forward from the crowd. It was an incredible thing to witness the joy in their faces as they were given this beautiful piece of art.. art that celebrated each one of them. If you haven't done so already, be sure and check out the art!

Josie photographed each child receiving his or her portrait and the artists that had donated their time to this project will receive this back as SFK and face.africa's way of saying thank you.

If you would like to support this project, please consider buying the book online. It makes a great gift and all proceeds will go directly back to the face.africa project.

Josie chose to recruit a group of older girls and young women to interview and photograph for face.africa 2007-2008. This group is from the slum of Kibera and the participants have joined a group called Binti Pamoja(Daughters United). It's basically a support group where they can talk freely about issues affecting them (revolutionary in Kenya!). This group is sponsored by Carolina for Kibera , a group SFK works closely with in Kenya.

Josie is already making plans to recruit artists for this next round of portraits (and the December show) and she is focusing on teenagers that she worked with in Springfield at the Missouri Fine Arts Academy... Teenagers empowering other teenagers should make a great impact!