Arts for Peace

"Arts for Peace" is a community-wide charity event in Naperville that provides arts and school materials to children in 24 impoverished elementary schools in Malawi & Tanzania. The kits will be sent to 1200 children in Malawi & to 1200 children in Tanzania.

We wish to thank all of our donors this last year for their caring and support and were absolutely overwhelmed by the quality of the donations and the interest in this worthy cause. We welcome our new volunteers and value the expertise and creative ideas they bring with them to the project! THANK YOU ! THANK YOU ! THANK YOU !

Since artistic expression is an important part of its peace initiatives, ThinkGlobal Arts invites Naperville residents to contribute to 'Arts for Peace'  as part of the 2009 'Celebration of Peace' event.

To build your Essentials Binder:
Take a 1”, 3–ring heavy duty View Binder, and fill with following items:
- a 3-hole zippered pencil pouch
  (containing 2 pencils, an eraser, a six-inch ruler,
    a pencil sharpener, & a box of 12 crayons)
- 40-50 sheets ruled paper
- 40-50 sheets plain paper
- 40-50 sheets assorted colored paper

Give the completed Essentials Binder to your Home Room Teacher, or contact (630) 697-4441, and a volunteer from ThinkGlobal Arts will pick up your completed Essentials Binder and ship it to Africa.  It is that EASY! ... and a message of Peace will be delivered from Naperville to Tanzania & Malawi.

as of …..Sep 2

WE HAVE THE PICTURES!!!!!!  

Finally, we have received pictures of our Binders being distributed in Tanzania!  This is very exciting for all of us! This has indeed been a long exciting, sometimes frustrating journey for us, but all’s well that ends well!  Ashwin Sampat has shared these fantastic pictures with us!!

It is thrilling to see the boxes we all had packed on the grass there, isn’t it!  …. And the children receiving the binders!    

To Ashwin and all of the volunteers in Tanzania, we THANK YOU immensely, the COMMUNITY AND CHILDREN OF NAPERVILLE ARE EXCITED AND THANKFUL TO BE ABLE TO HELP THE CHILDREN IN TANZANIA!

…as of July/August 2009

We learn that the boxes have obtained the clearance, but schools are now closed and we will have to wait! 

…as of April/May/June 2009

We wait and wait to hear from Tanzania.  Our boxes have reached Dar-Es-Salaam airport, and they have been sitting

at the airport without clearance!  Quite frustrating.

….as of March 2009

15 boxes were air lifted to Dar-Es-Salaam Tanzania!  Thanks to Jay Khatau for finding this air shipper for us!  This is a great alternative to shipping via sea, which would have taken months to reach, and our pallet waylaid by the pirates off of Somalia or stolen from the harbor by robbers!  Thank you so much Jay Khatau, you are fantastic!

…as of January 2009

we have 500 Binders packed with school and arts materials, but shipping options are not optimum.  Additionally, lots of paperwork to go through and clearances to be obtained in Africa.

….as of November 2008

We have been very busy collecting and sorting through all of the contributions made by the Naperville community!  The donations are overwhelming! 

Volunteers have been incredible!  It is tedious to sort through broken crayons, pencils etc etc.  But very slowly, we have bags of sorted crayons, sharpened pencils, crayons in Altoid boxes, etc.

Ashwin Sampat from Tanzania visits us, he tells us that many schools do not have desks.  Our plan to pack supplies in Ziploc bags is now changed to packing them into 1 inch 3 ring binders!

Now we are also looking for donations of 3 ring binders, which have been hard to come by, especially the 1 inch kind.

as of ….. September 2008

Collection boxes have been placed at 45 locations across Naperville.  Fliers and posters have been prepared.

Contributions such as chalk, crayons, markers, pencils, erasers, glue sticks, scissors, paints, brushes and rulers are most needed. Used and partial contributions are welcome as long as they work.

As of June 2008

We have just learned that schools in Malawi and Tanzania are very poorly furnished, to the extent that they may not even have CHALK to write with.  We feel if each family in Naperville would contribute at least one pencil, we could ship it to Africa!

This is the start of “Arts for Peace”, a plan to help the impoverished children in 24 schools in Tanzania and Malawi.

It is planned that this community-wide charity event will try to collect new and/or used art materials in boxes conveniently located around Naperville. Volunteers will package the materials into kits (a kit will consist of everything needed to complete an art project). The kits will be sent to 24 impoverished primary schools in Malawi & Tanzania. 2400 kits will be sent to 24 impoverished elementary schools in Malawi & Tanzania. The kits will be sent to 1200 children in Malawi & to 1200 children in Tanzania.

Drop-off sites [in Naperville]: 

•     District 203 Administrative Center, 203 West Hillside Road

•      All District 204 Elementary Schools

•      Anderson’s Bookshop, 123 W. Jefferson Avenue

•      Kroehler Family YMCA, 34 S. Washington Street

•      Fry Family YMCA, 2121 W. 95th Street

•      School of Performing Arts, 200 East 5th Avenue, Suite 132

•      Xilin Asian Community Center, 1163 e. Ogden Ave, Suite 301