World Quilt Project

The Saratoga Mentoring Program has just completed a magical public art project with textile artist Francelise Dawkins. More than 45 kids from the program and the community collaborated with Francelise to create a giant four-panel World Quilt using 1,500 pieces of fabric from countries all over the world. Adult quilters and beaders from the community helped the children and Francelise finish the project. The World Quilt will soon begin to travel around the globe as a celebration of all children and an ambassador for world peace.

click to enlarge quilt photos

An exciting part of this project is that it connected the Mentoring Program kids with children in communities all over the world. The Mentoring students wrote letters to children in other countries describing their family, friends, hobbies and school. They also sent photos and handmade gifts to their global pen pals. In return, each student asked for a letter and a piece of traditional fabric. Using the fabric collected from all over the world, they then worked with textile artist Francelise Dawkins to create the colorful fabric collages that Francelise pieced together to become the World Quilt.

To learn more about life in the countries to which they were writing, the kids came up with some fun ways of doing research. They cooked and tasted foods from around the world, and then held an international feast, including foods such as Sweet Cous Cous from Tunisia, Swedish Meatballs from Sweden, and a noodle dish food from Thailand.

They also both organized and attended a number of workshops to broaden their knowledge of the world. Ukrainian Egg Decorating, Israeli and Indian Dance and a slide show and talk by a Polish Photographer were some of the choices.

Even more fun are the ongoing Kids Teaching Kids Workshops taught by the Mentoring Program students. This year, using crafts, food tasting and slide shows, the kids will share fascinating facts about other countries with students at Project Lift, an after-school program at a local elementary school. For the past two years, they have taught at Project Lift and the Children's Museum at Saratoga.

The completed Quilt will travel around the United States. Also, plans are underway to display it in other countries such as Russia, Vietnam, Canada and Peru. When the kids see their work traveling around the globe, they'll experience first-hand that art is an international language.

The Mentoring Program continues to collect fabric from around the world to use in our Globetrotting workshops and to create a display poster of global fabric. Our goal is to collect fabric from every country in the world. We're depending on help from people like you, our far-flung friends and family. Can you or someone you know send us a yard of fabric characteristic of your country? We're also hoping that through your international network, you can give us the name of a child in your country (age 9-16) with whom one of our kids can correspond. We want to reach more children in the world, who, like the kids in the Mentoring Program, could benefit from opportunities to express themselves.

If you can send us fabric and/or the name of a child in your country that would enjoy being part of this project, please let us know. The address of the Saratoga Mentoring Program is 368 Broadway, Rm. 16, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866, USA. Phone: (518) 581- 1487. E-mail: info@saratogamentoring.org

We're hoping you'll be as excited about this project as we are! We're looking forward to hearing from you!