Arts for action and social change.
aHa Studio and Gallery founder, Carla van Laar, is passionate about the power of the arts to activate, empower, connect and heal. These qualities can be utilised not only by individuals, but by communities and society. We support a number of projects that work towards reducing suffering and healing trauma through caring and creativity.
The Art2Healing Project.
The Art2Healing Project is a non-profit, creative arts therapy organization based in Asia that is dedicated to assisting and empowering individuals at risk, particularly women and children who are victims of trauma.
The project provides psychological support, education and growth through the creative arts therapies and awareness based practices such as yoga and meditation.
Carla van Laar has been the Senior Advisor with the Art2Healing Project since 2010. She helps to develop and facilitate training with the project and travels to Nepal to work there.
Our main focus is the healing and re-education of trafficked women and children who have been raped and exploited and are suffering severe trauma.
We also work in conjunction with local agencies, social workers and caregivers who provide rehabilitation, education and care to these individuals.
Since our inception in 2005, we have worked with many organizations in Laos PDR, Cambodia, the Thai-Burma Border, Nepal and Japan. Currently, we are working on projects with trafficked victims in Laos PDR and Nepal, and we require funding and support for these projects.
aHa Studio hosts planning meetings for Art2Healing volunteers, and in 2015 we are offering a series of professional development weekends based on the healing approaches we have developed through working with women in Nepal.
http://www.theart2healingproject.org/
Heart 2 Heart - Care Cards for Kids in Detention.
In March 2014 Art Therapists Sharon Duthie and Carla van Laar teamed up to create a care cards project in response to the detention of children by the Australian government. Here is the press release about this project:
Thursday 27th March 2014
Australians are distressed by the drawings of despair from children in the Christmas Island detention centre. Children have depicted themselves behind bars and wire, crying and calling for help from Australia.
The images have been distributed in the media this week after an Australian Human Rights Commission team visited the island as part of its National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention. Initial reports reveal that the children are suffering physically, mentally and emotionally, manifesting in anxiety, depression and self-harming.
The Australian Government are under pressure to quickly change this traumatizing situation and create humane conditions for asylum seeking children and families. Aid organisations are offering support and rallying for change. Australian families have been moved to send donations of toys, hats and shoes for the children in detention.
Two Melbourne Arts Therapists, Sharon Duthie and Carla van Laar, are responding to the children’s drawings of despair by organising an opportunity for Australian children to create messages of hope to send back to kids in detention.
Heart 2 Heart: Care Cards 4 Kids in Detention is a project whose mission is to provide hope and love in the face of suffering and despair. Organising Art Therapist Carla van Laar says,
“It is important that we show the children that we have heard their cries and we care about them. We need to help them to have hope, while they wait, and we advocate, for the physical situation to change. We are using the same language that the children used to have their voices heard, the language of art.
“We are inviting Melbourne families to come with their children and make post cards that we will send to the children in detention to try and help lift their spirits and show them that Australians do care.”
Heart 2 Heart: Care Cards for Kids in Detention, took place on Wednesday 9th April from 2 – 4pm at aHa Studio, 311 Victoria St Brunswick.
We mailed nearly 200 cards to children in detention centres. We do not know if they were received. Current media reports show thousands of letters of support that have been sent by the Australian people have been returned to sender unopened.
Our next step is to document our care cards and add an online gallery of these messages of hope and support.
