Teach Visual Arts to Kids in South Africa

#artmatters

African Angels is humbled by the long term support from Julia and her organisation in the United States, @artforartorg

Julia and her team will be hosting an online art exhibition in July, to benefit African Angels.

This is what she shared on her social medial post via Instagram.

We are partnered with the international charity African Angels to provide funding for holistic academic and visual arts classes for over 100 students. In addition to providing hot meals, African Angels provides visual arts classes for children who live in communities without electricity, running water, sanitation or suitable housing. These classes teach the students to think critically and creatively, to observe and analyze, to express feelings and to problem-solve.

From July 5 - July 23, Art for Art will be hosting an online art exhibition featuring emerging student artists to support domestic and international COVID-19 relief. The exhibit is taking place on our website, and you can find the link in our bio. African Angels is one of the causes which will receive the proceeds from the art sold.

 We are deeply appreciative of Julia's sustained fundraising efforts to support visual arts at African Angels.  Now we are back to school, with some very strict procedures, we hope to start our visual arts programme again.

Because of Julia and her supporters, children who would never before have the opportunity to express themselves through art, can.  Please support the Art for Art exhibition - covid safe - as it's online, if you can.

"To draw you must close your eyes and sing." 
Pablo Picasso

Since African Angels started the African Angels Independent School in 2012, we have had three classes leave primary school for high school.  In 2020 we will have 23 graduates attending 12 different high schools, including some incredible schools like the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy in Johannesburg.  In the December holidays we gathered our graduates together to discuss what legacy they were planning to leave their community, and what the collective group of graduates were going to be called.  After much discussion and laughter, the group decided learners who graduate from African Angels were now Guardian Angels, and their slogan (in the local language Xhosa) would be iimbewu ezinekamva eliqaqambileyo, which, loosely translated, means 'seeds planted for the future.'  

We believe at African Angels that by providing a quality primary school education at the African Angels Independent School, we are preparing learners to be successful in high school. For children who come from a background of poverty, there are many support structures missing, and it is even more important, as they navigate the world of high school, that they remain supported.  In 2020 we have appointed a youth officer to support our learners in high school, and help them work their way through the upcoming challenges - big and small.

In South Africa today only 1 in 14 children who start high school graduate.  Of the 14 children who do graduate to university, only 1 in 6 complete university. 

Our aim is to see every African Angel finish high school, and as many as possible enter university or further education, and to successfully gain employment - first prize in South Africa.

Thank you for supporting our work. 

Please consider joining our Facebook fan page https://www.facebook.com/africanangelsfamily/ 

Please donate today through our GlobalGiving page to support our work.

Thank you,

Lou 

Chairperson, African Angels

Links:

• Join our Facebook Fan Page
• Follow the African Angels Insta feed
• Visit the African Angels website