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Edited by Jenny Na (jenny@groovekorea.com) COMMuNITY www.groovekorea.com / March 2014 84 S amantha Thomas may be an art teacher by trade, but she could also teach you a thing or two about multitasking. The Iowa native is the founder and director of operations at Glob- al Arts Therapy, a multinational NGO set to launch this month that uses art projects as the basis for sustainable community devel- opment. GAT’s mandate focuses specifically on women and chil- dren in Kathmandu, Nepal, with partner projects in Thomas’ local community in Des Moines, Iowa, and future projects planned for Ghana. If this mission comes off as a bit ambitious, it’s because it is — and under Thomas’ leadership, GAT is making it happen, one art class at a time. Thomas first witnessed the impact a creative outlet could have on underprivileged communities during a trip to the Czech Repub- lic in her early twenties. While exploring Brno, a city southeast of Prague, she came upon a series of paintings on a brick wall by local Roma children, a marginalized group in European society. “I cried when I saw it,” she says. “I mean, I’ve cried in front of Monets before, but when you see a child’s artwork like that, it’s like that’s the key right there. It’s public, it’s done by children, it shows history and it gives a narrative to heritage. How powerful is that?” The experience ignited a desire to combine her arts background — ceramics, painting and multimedia — with her degree in in- ternational development. She’d had her sights set on Nepal from an early age, but turned to English education as a stepping-stone into continental Asia. This began her two years spent teaching in Korea. Story by Jaime Stief / Photos courtesy of Janai Rai Fine art with a function Global Arts Therapy combines creative projects with sustainable development GAT gets off the ground Thomas took GAT for a trial run in 2012 while on vacation from her English teaching job. She arranged to volunteer with an orga- nization called Child Workers in Nepal, and arrived in Kathmandu with a suitcase full of art supplies. Having run art programs state- side and written an arts curriculum at her hagwon in Suji, Gyeonggi Province, she felt up to the challenge. But a crash course on the needs of the country, where some 40 percent of the population lives in poverty, made Thomas realize that if she wanted to create a meaningful project in Nepal, she was going to need a lot more than art supplies. Since then, she has been researching the region’s socioeconomics and tailoring GAT’s curriculum to the needs of the local community. The organization’s mandate is now focusing on the place where fine art meets functionality: sustainable design. Now, “sustainable” is a slippery term. For GAT, a project that promotes sustainability does two things: First, it must enable the economic independence of the local people who participate. Second, it must either upcycle or its output must address some sort of vital community need, such as a lack of clean water. At the end of the day, GAT is about building community centers where people can pick up life skills while also having a creative outlet. “I think people have a preconceived notion of art being merely pretty things that you can hang on a wall, and that art can’t be water filtration systems,” Thomas says. “We’re setting up studios in rural areas for very little cost so people can come in, learn to make pottery and create art, and help their communities gain revenue and be able to sustain themselves.” During the pilot project, GAT kept its offerings art-based: class- es in collage making, painting and self-portraiture. “The programs helped me explore art and creatively express myself,” says one participant named Neelam. Now, with one successful run under its belt, GAT is ready to stretch its legs with classes on making everyday items like soap and candles, as well as larger, more complicated items like ceramic water filters, pottery and heaters. GAT will also host community cleanup days to help scout for materials. The items produced will have a few different destinations. Some will go home with the participants and some will be sold online. Thomas is also investigating retailers in Nepal and the U.S. Most of the money generated will go directly to the participants, though a small portion will also go back to keeping centers and studios functioning.