Students Rebuild: www.studentsrebuild.org
Many students spend the waning days of school skipping out early, making plans to hang out with friends or thinking about summer jobs.
Takia Rogers is making bones.
The 17-year-old Grady High School student recently spent an afternoon surrounded by newspapers, paste and dozens of handmade “bones” stacked on top of a wall behind her.
The bones are part of a global project called "One Million Bones" to honor those who have lost their lives or suffered through genocide and conflicts in such far-flung places as Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“It breaks my heart because kids should not have to go through this,” Rogers said. “These kids need a voice. I just feel like I should help. “
The goal is to collect 1 million handmade bones and place them on the National Mall in Washington June 8-9. In 2011, One Million Bones placed 50,000 bones in an installation ceremony in Albuquerque, N.M., the movement’s hometown. Last year, it did the same in New Orleans.
The goal is to make about 5,000 bones, said Grady art instructor John Brandhorst, who plans to display the bones at the school when they’re completed.
Elsewhere in metro Atlanta, other groups are hosting their own bone-building activities to add to the final tally.
The project will also help raise awareness about the global humanitarian and health crisis that is taking place in many developing countries around the world. Atlanta-based CARE has partnered with Students Rebuild, the Bezos Family Foundation and Global Nomads Group on the project.
Students Rebuild was launched in January 2010 in response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti and has since mobilized thousands of young people in more than 38 countries and all 50 states in the U.S. through creative challenges.
It is a way to inspire young people to connect, learn and take collective action on critical global issues.
“The bones are a symbol of lives lost as a result of humanitarian crises over the course of history and in the present day,” said Giulia McPherson, deputy director of Citizen Advocacy for CARE USA. “They represent our common humanity and, in making a bone, individuals can connect with lives lost but also be inspired to take action to address current crises and help survivors.”
For each bone made, the Bezos Family Foundation will donate $1 up to $500,000 to CARE, which fights poverty.
As the hot May sun beamed down on him, ninth-grader Noah Chmar dipped strips of newspaper in paste. “It’s a good cause and we’re helping children who are less fortunate than us,” he said. “Every bone is a dollar that will feed them and provide transportation.”
He can’t imagine the lives of children who, at his age, were kidnapped and forced to participate in grisly killings and other atrocities as child soldiers. “It makes you grateful for what you have,” Noah said.
Brandhorst urges students to meditate and think about the survivors and victims of conflicts.
“Make these bones worthy of the people they represent,” he said. This isn’t some end-of-the-year busy work, he said. “When you’re you’re making something for someone else it changes things.”
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