We don’t spend a lot of money. Our goals are not at all lofty - our mission is basic.  We are providing something that we often take for granted here.  In doing so, we are making change in the lives of many of our students.    They thank us, they appreciate us, they remember us and they wait for us to return.

 

 

Art Instruction

We provide art instruction to students both during and after school.   Through our projects, we encourage students to think and to express themselves through their work.  

 

We employ local artists in Port Elizabeth for most of the classes we offer.  This way, when we have enough funding for a year-round program, all will run smoothly when we are not present.  Some were easy to find - friends of our friends there.  Others, like JoJo, our wire are teacher, we found selling his own wire cars and lizards, then asked him to join us in our work.  There are plenty of other artists we plan to employ as we expand.  

 

While free visual art instruction is the main purpose of ArtWorks for Youth, we also recognize other interests and needs of our students.

 

We provide lunch to our students before each class.  While the lunch is modest by US standards- a piece of

 

 

 

 

fruit and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich - it is, for some of our students, the largest meal of the day.

 

We also identify our students most at need and provide them with basic food staples.  

 

Because there is no free or discounted healthcare available to most of our students, we bring students to doctor and dentist for routine and emergency care.   Last year, we sponsored an 11 year-old boy from South Africa by bringing him to New York City for five months.  He was in need of a cornea transplant, which would have taken at least 2 years in South Africa.  It was of no expense to ArtWorks for Youth but we facilitated many in-kind gifts and donations to make the transplant possible.

 

We have assisted many of our students by helping them with student fees and school uniforms.  While school fees are inexpensive by our standards ($30 - $40 per year), they are not affordable for most of our students.

 

What has been great about the move from NYC to working exclusively in South Africa, is that we can do so much, some really great things, with little money.  Please browse the site to see what we have done and visit our future page to learn how we hope to grow.