Dear Friends,

Hello and please read below about an exciting project called "Peace Tiles",
which will be taking place during the next few months, culminating in a World
AIDS Day 2005 exhibition of completed murals at two or more international sites,
and local and national venues in countries where workshops have taken place.

Workshops in India, and hopefully an international installation, will be taking
place in September 2005. There may be 200+ schoolchildren involved in 6-8
workshops in the Jaipur area, organized by Gram Bharati Samiti, an Indian
development organization with a range of programs to empower local communities,
and a strong HIV/AIDS focus.

It is envisioned that this may be the first year of a multi-year project which
will grow both at the grassroots and internationally.

For more about it, please see www.peacetiles.net , and contact the email
addresses below! We hope you will join us, as youth raise their visual voices
about HIV/AIDS and other issues that affect their lives. Yours in creativity and
hope, Janet Feldman, KAIPPG/ActALIVE, kaippg@... , www.kaippg.org

OVERVIEW: On World AIDS Day 2005, the "visual voice" of hundreds of children and
youth affected by, or at risk of, HIV/AIDS will be exhibited in communities
around the world. The exhibitions, the culmination of the first international
Peace Tiles project, will consist of murals composed of individually produced
collages ("peace tiles") that give expression to messages created by children
and youth about HIV/AIDS and development-related subjects (MDGs).

The goal of the World AIDS Day Peace Tiles project is to raise awareness about
the vulnerability of children and youth, and to provide them with a dynamic
means for self-advocacy and self-expression. The Peace Tiles project will
coordinate the installation of murals in three international "solidarity sites":
the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (confirmed); at a
children's pediatric AIDS center in South Africa, and in India. Other murals
will be installed at locations identified by participating communities. The
Peace Tiles project will also coordinate the exchange of tiles between
participating communities.

THE PROCESS

Peace Tiles are produced in structured 1 or 2-day workshops designed to engage
participants emotionally, intellectually, and creatively in a process of "arts
advocacy." Children are encouraged to bring artifacts from their lives that
speak to a personal experience with HIV/AIDS or their knowledge of the pandemic
or on related subjects close to their hearts and homes. These artifacts (photos,
letters, scraps of cloth, newspaper clippings, etc) are integrated into their
personal collages that may have "scrap book" qualities, narrative features, and
educational value. When put together, the tiles create moving and uplifting
murals that capture the vibrancy and hope of our children and youth around the
world.

Presently, more than 15 communities around the world have expressed an interest
in sponsoring Peace Tiles workshops. Workshops are currently scheduled in India,
Uganda, Senegal, and the United States between now and September 31, 2005., and
tentatively in Kenya, Bangladesh, the Netherlands, Cameroon, Thailand, Germany,
and Canada. Exhibitions of the finished murals will open on World AIDS Day,
December 1, 2005.

The Peace Tiles Project has been created and is being coordinated by Lars
Hasselblad Torres (www.devarts.org ), in collaboration with the international
arts coalition, ActALIVE (www.actalive.org ), the International Child Art
Foundation (www.icaf.org ), and Visual Voices (www.visualvoices.org ).

More Information:

Peace Tiles World AIDS Day 2005: Art Actions and Unity Event:
http://www.tagstudio.net/devarts/index.php?q=wad2005 and also
http://www.peacetiles.net

Email: Lars Hasselblad Torres (lars@... ), Janet Feldman
(kaippg@... )

How To Make A Peace Tile:

Interested in making Peace Tiles in your community? Here's how in three easy
steps! Please note that the purpose of this guide is to provide a starting
point. With the exception of working on wood, please adopt the process to fit
your circumstances: stretch the boundaries and be as creative as you like! When
you have completed one or more Peace Tiles, please consider donating one or more
to the mural effort, or make a gift of your own mural to a pediatric AIDS
service organization.


-PREPARE YOUR WORK SURFACE. Cut your wood panel to 8-inches by 8-inches in size
(20-cm by 20-cm). Wipe down the surface of the wood with a weak mixture of soap
and water to remove excess dust, etc. Allow your tile to dry in the sun or air
about 10 minutes.


-CREATE A BACKGROUND. Using any combination of paint*, colored markers, pastels
or even paper (for example a newspaper photograph) or any other available media,
create a background for your collage. Let stand to dry up to one hour if you
have glued paper in your background.

-ADD THE FOREGROUND. Using liquid glue and a paint brush, carefully wet and
mount foreground objects like a photograph, a handwritten note or poem, a piece
of colored string or cloth, a postage stamp from your country, and other
artifacts on the surface of your tile. Let stand to dry up to one hour.

The Peace Tiles Project is a collaborative global arts project that aims to
raise awareness of issues impacting children and youth through a unique
combination of collage and mural work. Learn more: www.peacetiles.net .

Janet Feldman
E-mail: <kaippg@...>