The Importance of Words and Art
Explore how Posters for Peace turns empathy into action and why a lunchtime campaign matters for raising awareness.
After our recent meeting, our blog team wrote a wonderful piece, which is placed below.
Using words and conveying feelings through art are important expressions of our own humanity. Words capture complex feelings such as love, grief, hope, and anger. Art can capture these same emotions without words. This expression of emotion is what makes words and artistic creations so powerful. Simply receiving a kind message can make your day, and many people are in desperate need of hope. Posters for Peace is determined to use the emotional expression of words and art through humanitarian aid that's being sent to countries in need. Posters for Peace has partnered with Rise Against Hunger, intending to send messages of hope alongside humanitarian aid. Specifically, posters and messages will be sent alongside aid to the African nation of Malawi. Posters for Peace is trying to spread awareness, and one upcoming campaign is a lunchtime campaign aimed at raising awareness. We will be offering lollipops at lunch periods, and in exchange, students will write messages that will be added to the posters. Spreading awareness is crucial to our cause because these people need all the support and encouragement possible.
This project offers a visual and hands-on experience on how to convey important values, such as sympathy, through understandable social actions. Additionally, it can convey the feelings and compassion of students by acknowledging their kindness through their messages and using it to show care and support for real people. It offers a unique way to help others and show sympathy towards their struggles. There are many students, even in our own school, who have understood the feeling of not knowing when the next meal is coming. An estimated 14 million children struggle with food insecurity in the United States. Many students will be able to empathize with many struggles of the people of Malawi, and having an outlet to be able to send their own message of support creates a connection that restores a sense of humanity to people who have not felt it from the outside world. One 11th-grade student said,
“I think the posters for the peace project are very graceful, and I support it, because I do not want the children of Africa to starve, not only of hunger, but of care.”