Love is the Movement!

Today is "To Write Love On Her Arms" Day.

For those of you that don't know what TWLOHA's is...

twloha.com

Today is basically about writing the word love on your arm. Writing it to promote awareness about things such as self injury, addiction, depression, and suicide - specifically within the teenage years. (As I think this is where it is most often not taken very lightly. - you know, hormones.) But also acknowledging that these are things people won't grow out of. That people much older than their teens suffer. They fight these things ever single day.

So writing love on your arm not only promotes awareness and conversation about difficult subjects. It's also there as a sign of support. A sign that someone cares about you when depression, addiction, self injury, and thoughts of suicide make it so difficult to believe that could be true.

Love is the movement.
Rescue is possible.

You are never alone.

Art is the Cure!

Art is the Cure!

(I know I've spoken of hem before but I wanted to do a piece on them for a while now. They/He shares some of the core beliefs of what I would like to be able to do with my art.)

Started by a guy in the UK by the name of Rich about 2 years ago. AITC aims to help people use their creativity as a cure for mental health issues. Basically promoting art therapy in it's many forms.

His story and the story behind AITC can be found on the page.

It proves that art is powerful. It can help. And it can change the world.

<3

Invisible Children

This is the second page in the Aware book -

This one highlights the group known as Invisible Children.

"Our approach to humanitarian work is founded in the strength and intelligence of the Ugandan community. We learned early on it was not only important but essential to heed the wisdom of people that had not only lived in the war, but were surviving it. People who would know better than anyone what the greatest needs were and the best ways to meet them. What we came to find is that while there have been many efforts to address the issues that stem from living and fighting in such a long-lasting war, the people of Uganda are asking for a future beyond the conflict."
-Taken from the site.

Invisible Children is pretty big. They started in Uganda with child soldiers but their work is pretty wide spread these days. They have a film coming out. They've been on Oprah and have held several nation (US) wide events involving hundreds of people.

They are about to launch something they are calling "Mend". I think it launches Nov. 2nd. (This explains the woman and sewing machine on the right.)

Mend will be a business launched in Northern Uganda that employs former abducted child solders. (mainly women) Each bag will have the name of the woman who made it stitched inside. From their site you can read about the person who made your bag and see how she is "on the mend."

AWARE

I started a project at the beginning of September, but it's taken quite a good deal longer to do than I anticipated.

The plan was to do an altered book.
One page a week.
Each page highlighting a non-profit.
Thus spreading awareness about that specific organization and whatever their cause is.

I haven't managed a page a week. More like 2 pages a month.
But I like where it's going...

Here's the cover:I'm pretty excited about it because I get the opportunity to research non-profits and groups I've been interested in for a while now, but haven't really had the "excuse" to find out more about them.