What's This All About?
The LATWWW artwork started as a good idea and then, as people around the world connected with the idea, an amazing insight in the potential of children to remind adults of what is important was created.
In February 2003, Budd Hall (Dean Faculty of Education, University of Victoria) invited colleagues to his home for a barbecue to save the world. In the wake of the US “War on terrorism,” the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Dean wanted to try to brainstorm ideas for promoting peace and education in the world at the Learning and the World We Want conference to be staged in Victoria in November of 2003.
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At the barbecue Drs Tim Hopper and Kathy Sanford suggested that they could connect local schools to the conference with a suitable curricular-based idea. Artwork was then proposed with the theme “The World We Want.” As part of an on-going School Integrated Teacher Education research program four schools in Victoria district 61 were approach in May 2003 to see if they were interested in developing an art exhibit in collaboration with schools in Iraq and Afghanistan. The insight allowed the sincere, honest and hopeful visions of children from Canada, Iraq and Afghanistan to be connected and shared in one exhibit.
The project received national press coverage with articles in local newspapers, CBC radio 1 "Afternoonshow" and on the TV show The New VI. The exhibit has been shown at the Victoria Convention Centre as part of the LAWWW conference from November 21 to 24, 2003. Delegates at the conference were moved by the children's pictures. Many wrote heartfelt comments in a keepsake book. Conference discussions focused on the need to create a safer world for children, a world where ALL children can play safely, with joy and with the opportunity to learn and connect with each other.
The artwork exhibit has toured local schools in Victoria starting with Gordon Head Elementary School from Jan 28 to Feb 6, Braefoot Elementary School Feb 16 to 27, Frank Hobbs Elementary School March 1 to March 7 and Campus View Elementary School March 22 to April 2.
This website holds the details of how this story unfolded. The pictures are shown by each country in digital form on this site. Feel free to share in the voices of the children, the caring, at times harsh, but always honest visions of what they have experienced and what they dream.
We welcome your thoughts in response to this website and hope that this small offering may help bring a global world closer together, a world where every person is a child at one time, where every person deserves the right to a world without violence, fear and poverty. A shared world where despite cultural conflict there is more in common than there is in difference.
Comments can be e-mailed to Dr. Tim Hopper