Studio Syria - What We Did With Your Donation

Jean is back from her September visit to Zaatari refugee camp. She taught art workshops for four days with an open door policy for children of all ages and genders. Studio Syria partners with the amazingly devoted staff of Save the Children Jordan to facilitate this. Jean also held an afternoon art workshop in a facility provided by United Nations Women and donated supplies to them.

We'd like to thank Bernadette Ward of PanPastels for donating such amazing supplies that let the kids "paint" without water.

Under the guidance of expert knitter Laurie Balbo the Studio Syria yarn club was launched using yarn donated by people in Seattle and British Columbia. Laurie also cleared out much of her personal collection for the crafters at Zaatari.  The club became so popular that we moved it outside to make room for more women and girls.





Studio Syria purchased and donated hair dressing supplies for the hair dressing school at the UN Women facility. We'd like to thank Jonathan Flint and the staff at Seattle's Salon Joseph for their support of this.





Studio Syria purchased $140 worth of Arabic children's books and delivered these along with 150 donated children's books to the new Zaatari Library.  We'd like to thank Beatrice Cross at publisher Pan MacMillan and author Karen Asfour for their generosity.

We will supply International Relief and Development with more books, pencils and notebooks to assist with their literacy campaign and the opening of two more libraries. We think this library is one of the most heart warming things we have ever seen.

Studio Syria distributed a couple of thousand pencils, markers, colored pencils and notebooks to children along with 200 copies of our specially designed activity booklet.



This young girl holds a typical Studio Syria gift of an activity notebook, pencil, markers and a pencil sharpener. She has also been given bottled water and a nutrition enriched cookie from Save the Children.

With funds from Studio Syria Jean donated $700 worth of art supplies to the Child Friendly Spaces soon to be opened at Azraq Camp.

We also met with the psychologists of Save the Children Jordan to discuss future art therapy workshops. And with the staff of Save the Children International's team who runs the 21 Child Friendly Spaces in Zaatari to discuss how to help them provide creativity to children in the camp.

It was a very busy and productive week. We have much clearer ideas about how to avoid the inevitable distribution problems and are delighted to have made so many contacts with agencies happy to receive our help.

Most of all we will never forget the smiles on the faces of the children who made art with us and the loud and joyful scenes of children having fun and using their imaginations.