I was sent a link a while ago on Facebook to the Peace Painting Project, which was recommended for me to become involved in.
I had a look at the website, and contacted Catrine, who has been gracious enough to get in touch and support my idea to run peace painting workshops in Lincoln schools.
In Lincoln, there’s a very strong sense that people are proud of its military history, with one too many memorials to the invention of the tank, the dam busters, and with the Red Arrows based here.
As a pacifist, it’s very difficult to distance yourself from this, and it’s very important that kids are taught to think about peace and to present their ideas about what it means.
I have been in contact with Catrine via email and Skype, and she invited me to attend an event in Oslo back in April relating to the Peace Painting Project.
I unfortunately missed this due to lack of funds and bad timing. I applied for an a-n bursary but wasn’t successful.
My trip to Oslo to visit the Nobel Peace Center was funded by Overdraft.
I had planned to contact schools directly myself, but I asked a contact that I ran after schools comics workshops with last year if Paradigm Arts could help.
I’m awaiting a meeting in July, with the possibility that several schools would be interested in participating.
There is space available at the Pullman Hotel in London for the possibility of workshops, but at this stage I require travel funding for meetings with Catrine.
I enquired about funding at the Norwegian Embassy, and received an email to ask when I would be available to call to discuss it this, however I’m still waiting.
Catrine assures me that they will fund my next trip to Oslo to meet with her to organise things.
