Duke GlobeMed GROW team members Austin, Kelsey, and Andrew painting with children in Siuna, Nicaragua.
Published June 9, 2014, last updated on October 2, 2017 under Voices of DGHI
By Kelsey Sumner
One of the GROW team’s projects, Paint Pals, has been connecting children from Siuna, Nicaragua, to children in Durham, North Carolina. In a previous blog post, I mentioned how this past semester Duke GlobeMed had been painting with middle school students during the John Avery Boys & Girls Club’s after school program. We had the children paint what they thought of when they heard the word “community.” We brought those wonderful paintings with fireworks, people holding hands, and sayings such as “through all the dark there is light” with us to Nicaragua and gave them to children who participate in the domestic violence shelter’s mural painting program. We have now had two Paint Pals sessions here and they have been going great!
All of the children loved receiving the paintings from Durham and couldn’t wait to start painting their own. After the first session, one girl painted a volcano amidst two big blue eyes whereas another boy painted a heart with beams of black and yellow shooting behind it. And, best part of all, throughout every hour and a half long painting session I get to talk to the children and learn more about their lives. I hear about the weeklong Mother’s Day festival, when the next soccer match will go down on la cancha (the city’s main sports court), and the children’s exciting activities in school. Paint Pals is great in that it not only connects Siuna and Durham’s children but also connects GlobeMed to them. I cannot wait to interact with even more children here in the weeks to come! One of the GROW team’s projects, Paint Pals, has been connecting children from Siuna, Nicaragua, to children in Durham, North Carolina.
In a previous blog post, I mentioned how this past semester Duke GlobeMed had been painting with middle school students during the John Avery Boys & Girls Club’s after school program. We had the children paint what they thought of when they heard the word “community.” We brought those wonderful paintings with fireworks, people holding hands, and sayings such as “through all the dark there is light” with us to Nicaragua and gave them to children who participate in the domestic violence shelter’s mural painting program. We have now had two Paint Pals sessions here and they have been going great! All of the children loved receiving the paintings from Durham and couldn’t wait to start painting their own. After the first session, one girl painted a volcano amidst two big blue eyes whereas another boy painted a heart with beams of black and yellow shooting behind it. And, best part of all, throughout every hour and a half long painting session I get to talk to the children and learn more about their lives. I hear about the weeklong Mother’s Day festival, when the next soccer match will go down on la cancha (the city’s main sports court), and the children’s exciting activities in school.
Paint Pals is great in that it not only connects Siuna and Durham’s children but also connects GlobeMed to them. I cannot wait to interact with even more children here in the weeks to come!
