Focus In: The Memory Project

I first learned about the Memory Project when it was only open to high-school students. When the project expanded to include middle school in 2012, I jumped at the opportunity to have my students draw children from different countries, send them their portraits, and then have a video sent back to us showing the delivery. Ten years later, my school has sent portraits to children in orphanages and refugees from twenty-two countries.

Connecting through Art
Each year, our schoolʼs art classes spend a few months learning about a different country including its cultures, customs, location on a map, history, foods, sports, clothing, and climate, and then incorporating that knowledge into their portrait of a child from that country.

Studying photographs of children and drawing them while learning about their country allows students to become familiar with their lives. Young minds are opened with compassion and understanding about people who are different from them and their corner of the world. Creating a portrait connects students through art to a real person their age with whom they can identify.

Project Logistics
The teacher is responsible for signing up on the Memory Project website, planning and organizing the portraits, making sure each is finished and has the correct name and designated number, and mailing them back to the Memory Project for distribution.

I teach at a Title One school, and there has never been a budget for this project. For the past ten years, it has been successfully funded through DonorsChoose.

Starting the Project
I introduce the project with a video sent by the Memory Project about the children weʼll be creating portraits for and their country. Sometimes I show other short YouTube videos about the country we are focusing on. Then I explain what the Memory Project is and why weʼre creating these portraits.

Each student is given a black-and-white printed photo of a child, and I email students the color photograph. The photos include the child’s name, age, favorite color, and interests so students can personalize the drawings.

I pass out a worksheet divided into twelve sections. Students create twelve drawings to use as resources for their final portrait. Drawings can include the countryʼs flag, flowers, clothing, foods, sports, landscapes, buildings, art, animals, and customs.

Using Google Translate, I have students look up five positive words in the childʼs language to include in their portraits.

It is important that each portrait resembles the child and accurately depicts skin color, so I also assign students a worksheet to practice creating specific skin colors and tones.

Creating the Portraits
This is the first art class for most students I teach, and they don’t yet have the skills to draw a realistic portrait. They initially work with their school-supplied Chromebooks and Google Drawings.

Students upload the childʼs photograph into Google Drawings. Using the scribble line tool, they go over the outline of the photograph, filling in as much detail as possible and adding their own details. If they want to use the five words from Google Translate during the digital drawing component, they can add them in.

When students have completed that step, they delete the photograph. Now they have a black-and-white drawing of the child. Students send me the drawing, and I print it for them on a black-and-white printer. Students incorporate drawings from their worksheets to the background by hand, adding patterns to the clothes and color with colored pencils or watercolors.

On the back of their drawing, students trace their hand and write their first name and their age. Then they usually draw and add even more pictures. Students upload the finished portraits to their digital portfolios so they have a copy of their artwork.

A Lasting Impact
When the portraits are complete, I put them in a plastic sleeve and mail it to the Memory Project in Wisconsin. A few months later, we receive a video of the children happily receiving their portraits.

Having my students participate in this project affirms what art can accomplish and the profound worldwide impact it can have, one country and classroom to another.
The Memory Project is a worthwhile nonprofit to support because it does so much good in building cultural understanding and encouraging kindness between youth all around the world.