Thinking about creativity

Does anyone remember as a kid collecting money at Halloween to give to UNICEF? Do kids still do that: find ways to raise money and awareness of the plight of children all over the world?

The United Nations Children Fund began in 1946 as a way to help children impacted by World War II, and over the decades, it’s grown into an organization that provides humanitarian relief that helps children globally, focusing on child survival and development; basic education and gender equality (including girls’ education); child protection from violence, exploitation, and abuse; HIV/AIDS and children; and policy advocacy and partnerships for children’s rights.

Here’s how my journey to thinking about UNICEF began.

A while back, Joel sent me some books, among them Judy Collins‘s Sanity and Grace: A Journey of Suicide, Survival, and Strength. Most of us know Judy Collins as a gifted singer. She’s had an amazing life which was deeply impacted by the suicide of her son. After reading the book, I planned to send it to a long-distance friend of mine, whose life has also been affected by the suicide of a loved one, and who wishes to turn that sorrow into a way of helping other survivors of suicide. I wanted to add to it Miss Collins’s memoir Singing Lessons, a far more detailed account of her life and of her son, Clark. I ordered that book, but before I sent it on to my friend, I felt compelled to read it.

A portion of the book details Judy Collins’s work as a UNICEF Special Representative for the Performing Arts. I came across the following excerpt, which I found profoundly moving:

Later that day we made a visit to a UNICEF program in the local high school [in Bosnia] where children bearing flowers and singing songs greeted us. I sang for the children, “White Coral Bells,” “I Dream of Peace,” and “Amazing Grace.” We visited children in schools, orphanages and classrooms. In a bombed-out basement room in a school in Mostar, surrounded by rubble, we met children of twelve and thirteen having their lessons as we heard the explosions of tank and gunfire in the mountains close by. Their voices sang, while their blue, black and brown eyes shone. The children ignored the sounds, making drawings, guided by the gentle, recorded voice of Rune Stuveland, a Norwegian teacher who developed a method of dealing with war trauma in which terror becomes art for a moment. The children’s drawings and paintings were eloquent, their loveliness like a healing grace. In their midst, singing in the storm, drawing in the shadow, smiling as the bombs fell, I felt the power and courage of these children, survivors of war.

In Bosnia I learned, again and again, the lesson of creativity: the painting I make today, the drawing I do today, the poem I do today, is meant to save my life today.

A child’s drawing from I Dream of Peace: Images of War by Children of Former Yugoslavia
by James P. Grant and Maurice Sendak.

I think this coming Halloween, I’ll be like a kid again and give some money to UNICEF.