Habitat for Humanity
Habitat for Humanity is an amazing international organization. Habitat for Humanity partners with people in their community, and all over the world, to help them build or improve a place they can call home. Habitat homeowners help build their own homes alongside volunteers and pay an affordable mortgage. Their mission statement includes:
“Seeking to put God’s love into action, Habitat for Humanity brings people together to build homes, communities, and hope.”
My idea for a service learning project is to work with this organization. As a need of this organization is volunteers, students would get the experience of volunteering for a day while partnering with a building crew to help build a house. They would then get to learn how to stretch their own canvas and paint a piece that would end up in the homes that Habitat for Humanity builds.
My desire would be that they would be able to connect with the future homeowner and make a piece specifically for their interests and interior design desires. In some cases though, the family chooses to be more private. Nevertheless, students will get to connect with the community, learn about the organization, and consider the essential question, “What makes a house a home?” The students will get to choose to donate their painting to be put in Habitat for Humanity’s future homes, or sell it to raise money and support for them. As advanced students high school students, it is an opportunity to not hold on to all of their art and learn the value of their projects in the community.
This project will align with National Standard VA:Cr2.3.IIIa (Demonstrate in works of art or design how visual and material culture defines, shapes, enhances, inhibits, and/or empowers people's lives.) It is also closely related to the K-12 Service-Learning Standards: Service-learning partnerships are collaborative, mutually beneficial, and address community needs; Service-learning incorporates multiple challenging reflection activities that are ongoing and that prompt deep thinking and analysis about oneself and one’s relationship to society.
Students will be forced to really think about
the poor living/financial situations of individuals in their communities. In
some students' cases, they can hopefully gain an appreciation for their own
circumstances and they all can see the need for volunteerism in their
community. This project will show students that they can make a direct impact on
a person’s life in their own community. It will also empower them with new skills
to use in the future.
Are you planning to have each student create a piece or will they work collaboratively? Also what kind of guidance would you offer for the painting? I think an abstract, group painting would be a good opportunity for students to work with one another and play around with symbolism and composition.
ReplyDeleteNatalia,
ReplyDeleteI think that it's great that you have a desire to work with an organization such as Habitat for Humanity. I know that in class we all discussed multiple ideas for this project and I really wonder about doing a 3D project with your students, instead of 2D, in a way that connects to Habitat for Humanity and raises money for them. Instead of directly making art for the families, what if you had your students create a 3 dimensional piece of art work, to be sold to families/community members, and then donate the money to Habitat for Humanity.
Here is one idea that came to mind (just as a suggestion and/or starting point):
WHAT IF- you had your students go out and help Habitat for Humanity work on a house kind of as a field day, and then brought their ideas back to school, to make tiny houses for pets. As Wendy says, parents LOVE to buy their children's art, especially when the money is being used to support something in their community. I remember when I did my level I field experiences, my C.T. held an auction for the student art work. One of the pieces was a bench that the students had helped build, paints, etc. This bench sold for over $400. If this is an elementary lesson, collaborating with the high school "shop" class would be a great way to get older students and younger students connected. You could build virtually anything, but to connect it to building homes, I thought of "pet homes," because they wouldn't need to be extremely large, and would still allow students the opportunity of making a home for a living thing, and experiencing the building process. You could auction these off to people in the community and use the money raised to donate to your organization.
Sorry, I know this is a lot, but I got super excited when this idea came to me and I had to share with you!! :)
I like your ideas and enthusiasm for helping others. I really think that you should go the route of making something to raise awareness and not directly for the family too. Vanessa has good ideas about learning from the experience and then using their reflection from building to then work to raise money/awareness for the organization. I think everyone wants to decorate their home (their first home with their own ideas/art) so maybe creating art inspired by the idea of home to sold (like the greeting card idea) in response to their new understanding. I want to reiterate that we do not want to make the HS students "pity" the family but instead see this as someone overcoming a difficult situation and persevering. Make sure to focus on that when students reflect .
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