Page 18 - ChildArt_Magazine_Oct-Dec2015

By WILLIAM LEE

To Promote Friendship, Be a Friend

Frienshipology workshop
in New Zealand: making a
fan for a friend.

For the 2015 World Children’s Festival, Stephen larities. Think of peace and war or love and hate. What
Smuin, Chris Fiorentini and I designed a special work- can we all agree on? What do we all essentially want?
shop on Friendshipology-our term for the study What can we, as 20 young international students, do
and promotion of friendship. The plan: inspire ap- together to make a meaningful contribution to promot-
proximately twenty highly motivated 11 to 13 year-old ing friendship? Our thought was to put forth our feel-
students from around the globe to promote friendships ings and our hopes by writing, decorating, and signing
in their lives and communities.We wanted to begin by a Declaration of Interdependence. This was particularly
creating joy, optimism, and a comfort zone with our historic during the Festival week of July 4th, which
group hailing from many different countries, cultures, marks the signing of the U.S. Declaration of Indepen-
and backgrounds. By using imaginative artistic games dence. We see this as a commitment for children and
such as Crayon Culture (in which we attach a line of a challenge for their adult mentors. Together, we can
crayons kids have pre-labeled with something they value create a world where friendshipology thrives.
to the top of a foam core board and use a hair dryer to Do you have your own ideas for friendshipology?
melt them into a vibrant web of overlapping colors) What can you do to involve and challenge adults with
we could encourage them to open up and find magic serious discussions on what friendship means for our
qualities in each other. Together, they could discover the joint communities and world? Gather a group together
enlightening power in group collaboration. and see what you come up with. We invite you to share
Once this was established, we could begin brain- (with your parent’s permission) your ideas with Child-
storming. What is Friendship and why does it matter? Art. Click on the Friendship Fans link on the ChildArt
How does it begin and how does it grow? What do we website to download a pdf file with a template for your
need to sustain it? With personal experiences, values, own friendship fan.3
and traditions, we begin to see our differences and simi-

18 ChildArt | October–December 2015