Print (and Perk) Making in Process!

Artist Veronica Lopez offered to create some original woodcut prints as perks for our IndieGoGo campaign, and in the meantime, gives me and Rumin a quick lesson in printmaking! Super fun!

 

Safari Soiree- Cocktails and Animal Bingo! August 9!

Join us for a fabulous fundraising event on Thursday, August 9 from 7:30-10:00 pm in Oakland, CA at Animals for Africa Headquarters! 1119 E. 15th Street • Oakland, CA 94606
RSVP HERE! (no ticket purchase necessary!)


We're gathering up our lovingly handcrafted stuffed animals and friends (and animal-like friends!) for a farewell party and fundraiser before delivering our creative collection of creatures to orphaned and vulnerable children in Malawi and Uganda. 


Come sip on a sultry, signature "Safari Soiree" cocktail and play a round (or two!) of Animal Bingo (for prizes!) all while mingling with awesome people and munching on yummy samosas! All proceeds from drink, bingo, raffle and food purchases will fund Animals for Africa's mission: to economically empower people through creativity, connection and love by bringing citizens of the world together to create simple, folk-art inspired stuffed animals for vulnerable children in need and to seed sustainable social enterprises for women and youth through artisan training. 


RSVP HERE! (no ticket purchase necessary!)


Can't make the party? No problem! You can still help us make Animals for Africa happen by donating through our IndieGoGo campaign.


No cash to spare, but still want to contribute?? Consider offering your professional service, product or original artwork as a raffle or bingo prize! Please contact robbyn@animalsforafrica.org!


Or just show up to show your support and share our work with your friends! We still have a ways to go to reach our goal, so please help spread the word! 

Only 21 days left before we Go!Go!

Make a difference in the lives of women and children and create a worldwide village through art by helping us reach our $10,000 goal on IndieGoGo!



We're so excited and busy, making plans for our trip! So far, we have plane tickets for 2 artist/educators to travel roundtrip between San Francisco and Malawi, Africa. But will still need  your support to make our project happen!

Animals for Africa is returning to Malawi to to deliver over 200 hand-crafted animals to orphaned children and to nurture the Tukombo Village women’s crafting cooperative, a social enterprise planted last May. From August 15- September 15, two artist/educators will facilitate workshops with women and youth to seed several more crafting cooperatives in Malawi and Uganda through collaborations with KUDO, the HALO Foundation and In Movement: Art for Social Change.

Please visit and share our IndieGoGo Fundraising campaign: (link through our website www.animalsforafrica.org) or visit

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/157887?a=812042&i=emal

Your gift will go a long way towards helping us make a difference in the lives of women and children, one little animal at a time! 

IndieGoGo Perk Photos Batch 2

If you choose to receive a mounted photo for your perk, please shoot us an email and let us know which of the follow images you'd like!  robbyn@animalsforafrica.org

PHOTO 1- Bobby Grocery

PHOTO 2- TREE OF HEARTS

PHOTO 3- VIDEO SHOW

PHOTO 4- Feather Capped Dancers

PHOTO 5- Boy in Mizuzu

PHOTO 6- Women Drumming

PHOTO 7- Healing Hands

PHOTO 8- WANAGWA Restaurant

PHOTO 9- Flowers in Mizuzu

PHOTO 10- SHUGA Investments

PHOTO 11- Baobab

PHOTO 12- Malawian Woman

INDIE GOGO PERK PHOTOS

If you choose to receive a mounted photo for your perk, please shoot us an email and let us know which of the follow images you'd like!  robbyn@animalsforafrica.org

HAPPY CHILDREN

DANCER IN YELLOW

VILLAGE WOMAN WITH CHILDREN

AFRICAN SKY

WOMEN DANCING MALAWI

ELEPHANTS

Help Us GoGo! to Africa this Summer!

Our IndieGoGo Crowdfunding Campaign is up and running! Please spread the word and donate what you can to help send 3 artist/educators to Africa this summer with cargo of wildly creative animals!

Inspiration! Revisiting the Vision!

 So excited to return to Malawi this summer, to revisit my friends and deliver all the awesome animals to children in Tukombo!

Zebra Antics and Other Happenings'!

We kicked off our spring with an amazing Art Safari at Safari West in Santa Rosa. This event brought 8 creative souls together to craft animals for orphans in Malawi and to experience an adventurous safari through an authentic African Wildlife preserve, where we saw dozens of different species of mammals and birds!  Not only did our creativity and connnection inspire a Safari West staffer to host her own Animal Art Party, they are now planning to sell our crafting kits in their gift shop!   So, coming soon,  "Animal Love Craft Packs" for 2! Pre-Order yours today for  $45!  

Animals for Uganda Sunday Retreat.......... with lunch by Chit Chaat Chai

Sunday, June 24. 2012  12 noon-4:30pm

Animals for Africa Headquarters

1119 East 15th Street, Oakland CA 94606

FULL DONATION REQUESTED $35

Join us for a lovely lunch and a leisurely day of crafting and connecting as we make Animals for Africa for the KAYDA orphanage in Uganda and raise funds to support art programs for their youth through In Movement- Art for Social Change!

No crafting or art experience necessary!   Unleash your creativity to show a child in need you care.  Space is limited to 20 crafty crafters. Your $35 donation (or more) will cover a delicious lunch and support our arts-education/service learning projects with In-Movement in Uganda this September.

12-1:00 pm  lunch by Chit Chaat Chai ($10 donation)

a delicious vegetarian, vegan & gluten-free lunch 
inspired by the Kathiawaar/Gujarat region of India 

1-4:30pm crafting & connecting! ($25 donation)

Please RSVP!  robbyn@animalsforafrica.org 

(You can choose to attend both lunch and crafting, or either only) 

BUY YOUR TICKET ONLINE HERE:

Give at the door, or, send a check to:

Animals for Africa

1119 East 15th Street 

Oakland, CA  94606

In Movement: Art for Social Change is a registered non-governmental organization (NGO), founded in 2006, that implements arts education programs with orphans and other disadvantaged youth in Uganda. The goal of In Movement, as established in our 2003 pilot project, is to promote creativity through the arts. They believe that the arts offer a very powerful tool for youth empowerment, unlocking a vast potential for personal growth and transformation, while promoting happier, healthier, and more satisfying lives.

KAYDA (Katwe Youth Development Association) has developed several initiatives to support homeless, abandoned and orphaned youth/children that spend most of their time on the streets. The organization has established a Drop in Centre, which comprises of five rooms, a carpentry workshop and other two projects for poultry, and Barbershop. The centre has 35 children who regularly drop in and are undergoing behavior change. They get all the basic requirements from the centre. Only girls are fostered with KAYDA Members and if possible reunited back with their families. Since its initiation in 1995, the organization has re integrated more than 120 children back to their families and others live independently. 

New Connections & Collaborations

Photo Courtesy of In Movement: Art for Social Change

"Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist."

-- Rene Magritte

New Connections and Collaborations

We are excited to announce our collaboration with In Movement: Art for Social Change,  a registered non-governmental organization (NGO), founded in 2006, that implements arts education programs with orphans and other disadvantaged youth in Uganda.  The goal of In Movement, as established in our 2003 pilot project, is to promote creativity through the arts. They believe that the arts offer a very powerful tool for youth empowerment, unlocking a vast potential for personal growth and transformation, while promoting happier, healthier, and more satisfying lives. What a perfect partnership!   Through In Movement, we will be creating animals for children at the KAYDA orphanage, and facilitating artisan training programs for vulnerable women and youth in Uganda this September.

KAYDA (Katwe Youth Development Association) has developed several initiatives to support homeless, abandoned and orphaned youth/children that spend most of their time on the streets. The organization has established a Drop in Centre, which comprises of five rooms, a carpentry workshop and other two projects for poultry, and Barbershop. The centre has 35 children who regularly drop in and are undergoing behavior change. They get all the basic requirements from the centre. Only girls are fostered with KAYDA Members and if possible reunited back with their families. Since its initiation in 1995, the organization has re integrated more than 120 children back to their families and others live independently. 

We are also also planting the seeds this summer to grow more international crafting cooperatives through collaborations with The HALO Foundation.  HALO  is committed to enhancing the living conditions and providing art therapy for orphans worldwide. HALO provides American youth with opportunities to learn philanthropy and volunteerism by seeing the world through the eyes of the less fortunate.  Orphans supported by HALO are provided food, water, shelter, clothing, education, and art therapy. HALO works with orphanages in Mexico, India, Uganda, Kenya, Nicaragua and residential homes in the United States. Children from these homes submit their artwork to be sold at events in the United States, and aid in raising funds for continued support.

We're recruiting ambassadors and friends to help create over 100 animals for the children at the KAYDA orphanage and HALO's centers in Uganda by August 1, 2012. Sign up today! 

Vital Signs of Love in Kansas City

My aunt Bette McGill and cousin Lisa Chinn hosted an Animal Art Party at Bette's sign and custom T-Shirt shop in Kansas City (Vital Signs) on April fool's day. We had so much fun making animals and catching up! Not only did Bette have great snacks and delicious mint lemonade, she provided the most inspiring space for getting creative and made a most awesome giraffe! My mom was there too, and my aunt Kim and cousin Jessie. Lee, a friend of Lisa's was also busy crafting, churning out two animals before her and her daughter had to scoot. Tatum, Lisa's little one was also helping us out, mostly by singing and humming her own little tunes for us to craft to! Plus one of my oldest highschool friends, Kris Coyazo came by- tho she managed to sneak out before I could snap a pic of her with her animal! Love you guys- thanks for believing in me and supporting the project!

 

 

Art Safari Tickets- Buy Online

Reserve Your Spot on the Art Safari, Saturday April 21! Buy your tickets here!

Love Made Tangible - March Update Newsletter

Animals for Africa collects a growing menagerie and makes travel plans for artisan training and animal delivery this summer!

VIEW IN YOUR BROWSER

Citizens Put Their Necks Out for Orphans in Africa       Welcome to "Love Made Tangible!" the official newsletter of Animals for Africa!   Animals for Africa is a nonprofit arts program that benefits and empowers Africa's most vulnerable women and children through the hand-crafting and exchange of simple, folk-art inspired stuffed animals.  Since it's inception in May, 2011, when I first traveled to Malawi, Africa with VoiceFlame Writers, I have continued to work with friends and allies all over the world to empower a group of impoverished village women in Tukombo Village to form their own crafting cooperative (or Animal COOP!) as dozens of "concerned citizens"  step forward to contribute their creative energy and "money as love" to create personalized animals for orphans and vulnerable children in Malawi. So far, over 80 wild and wonderfully creative animals have been wrangled up for delivery to Malawi this summer - with nearly 30 of those thanks to our creative collaborator and super- ambassador, Sue Hickman and her friends, truly the  "hostess with the mostest!"   We're having so much fun!  And new alliances are forming to help bring "Love Made Tangible"  to Ghana, Uganda and even Cambodia! (Did someone say Animals for Asia?)  A brief glimpse of these happenings are touched on below, along with details on our special upcoming event- an  Art Safari at Safari West on Saturday, April 21st!  To get more scoop on these stories and more, follow our blog  and be sure to check out our updated website for more information about who we are, what we do and how you can help make or support Animals for Africa! And finally, if you want to track all our most current shennanigans, "like us" on facebook!  I hope you enjoy reading about all our recent and upcoming adventures!  WIth Love and Hippo Hugs! Robbyn Alexander, Founding Director Animals for Africa Girls Get Wild at CERI Animal Art Party! The Center for the Empowerment of Refugees and Immigrants (CERI) in Oakland, CA hosted Animals for Africa at their own Animal Art Party in January.  I was delighted to spend two Friday evenings chatting and crafting with this group of compassionate and wildly creative young women, while they made their own ecclectic versions of the animals for orphans in Africa, and planted seeds to bring "Love Made Tangible" to orphans in Cambodia. Check out the full story and pics here! Art Safari! Get Your Zebra On! Sat, April 21 A Wild & Crafty Creative Retreat 11am-4:30pm at Safari West Santa Rosa, CA Feeling wild and crafty? Join Animals for Africa on an Art Safari!   Come "get your zebra on" as you connect and create on a day-long retreat with new friends, great food & crafting-for-a-cause! Your contribution of $150 includes safari, lunch and crafting supplies. Space is limited to 8 adventurers!  ($10 Early Bird Discount if you register by March 20!) Read details and register here! Upcoming Travels and New Alliances Our menagerie of hand-crafted animals keeps growing, and thanks to our ambassadors and friends, we already have nearly 80 animals in the stable, almost half way to our goal of 200 by July!  That's a lot of  "love made tangible" for Malawi! Travel plans are underway for our return trip to Africa this summer for delivery to the children in Tukumbo Village and Blantyre.  New alliances are also brewing that could have us spending a few weeks in both Ghana and Uganda to seed artisan crafting cooperatives for women and youth there as well! Read more here!

follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend  Make a "Money as Love" donation! Animals for Africa is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization.  Contributions for the purposes of Animals for Africa must be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.