Youth Art Mentorship Program and why I feel its important.

-A message from The Key to Life Trust about The Social Distancing Childrens Art project -

“giving our kids the permission to publicly express their thoughts, even their fears , is paramount in creating confident young people . A young persons interpretation of the world also gives us adults a rare perspective within the minds of our young people “ .

Using art to aid in rehabilitation often has a flowery wooo woooo sound about it.. but this blog has extracts from my time working with girls who had been rescued from the human trafficking industry and will hopefully show you real outcomes.

I was working with a group of prisoners doing some mask making. I moulded tinfoil over the men’s faces (so that there was a part of them in it) and then I asked them to paper Machete over the top. The brief was  “how did they see themselves “ .  The idea that the process of making art would give the men, myself and their unit psychologists a glimpse into their subconscious. 

This is a personal story from one of those men about his mask, and I want to thank him for opening up as this begins the healing process. I’m going to put a “Warning” here as it’s a tough read .  He talks about his abusive childhood, being sent to a Government Social Welfare Health Camp and then his life as an adolescent growing up.

Having worked as an art tutor myself in a prison and in rescue shelters of victims of extreme human rights abuse,  I understood the constraints of creating art in an environment where you may not have access to running water , the art materials are limited, there may be no table or easel and you have to work on the floor and most importantly for safety reasons space and freedom to create art in your own time is restricted.

"I’d been told on my induction training to the prison to be mindful of this sort of thing happening .. to be aware of prisoner manipulation ..and I thought to myself..  Do I need to report this to the Principal Corrections Officer?   But you need to read on."

Working with Autism and how art can help achieve changes in consciousness .

When working with children with Autism I find that doing repetitive calming exercises to begin classs works well.

Rebekah and I always start by drawing a soft toy that she brings to class. Today she brought her rabbit called "Blossom" so of course because its Springtime in New Zealand we drew Blossom under a blossom tree.

The spring wind was horrendous outside and the old studio was creaking and groaning . Rebekah doesn’t like the wind , she can become agitated as she is often afraid that the power will go off . So we put Taylor Swift on the UE Boom and turned it up and began drawing and we soon forgot about the wind, instead losing ourselves for 1.5 hours in our drawing. 

Music and art is magic like that .

-Corina Hazlett Artist Studio-

This artwork is digitally extended. To experience it , install the Artivive App on your phone. Open the App and point your phone at the artwork to make it come to life.

With 88% ram raiders under the age of 20 It made me think about a collaborative artwork that I did with a group of young men in the Youth Unit of Christchurch Mens Prison in 2014.

This artwork reinforced the message that a child’s home can either be where the heart is, or where the harm is.

I asked the big questions to the young men I was working with.. What was it in their environment that lead them to being where they were today?. These were answers direct from our brainstorming sessions that are written on the painting itself.

REALITY - Drive by shootings, Domestic Violence , One young man whose parents were in prison was stealing to feed his siblings told me that his younger sister was making money from sex. Prostitution at an early age (10 years) ,substance abuse beginning as young as 5 are all realities for these children.

DESENSITISATION - Exposure from a young age to witnessing harm or in some instances death by violence , substance abuse, sexual abuse means that these youth NO LONGER FEAR or are DISTURBED by violence or over sexualisation of feelings. The boundaries of what is considered “normal” behaviour have become blurred. I can recall asking if they were scared when they witnessed these things (because Im damn sure I would be terrified) and they said no. I can also recall misperceptions of behaviours .. the incredulous look on the face of one young man when I said “no, its not normal behaviour for your dad to lock your mother in the boot of the car” . This is NOT a normal way for a family to behave .. but for him it was normal. So I guess its about changing these misperceptins .

NON AUTHORITIVE PARENTING- There is often no love , no family/whanau support or unit. Some of these boys parents were on drugs, some had one or both parents in prison. Children are often left to look after themselves and that includes finding money anyway they can to feed themselves. If I think about that today, we are all understanding the hardships of increases at the fuel pump and at the supermarket so I am sure that the cost of items and the value they have to sell on a black market are leading to an increase in burglaries including ram raids.

TRUANCY - labelling based on older siblings behaviour or peer groups mean sometimes schools give up on some youth. Behavioural disorders including foetal alcohol syndrome WITHOUT parental support from the home mean children drop out of the education system. Truancy services give up because they can’t contact family . Truancy leads to boredom leads to offending in many cases.

BOREDOM

A few of the boys that I was working with told me a place that had been designated for youth to congregate in had been closed down by the local council resulting in a rise in criminal behaviour. Youth need a supervised safe place to congregate , where they can play sport , or with cultural activities .

An interesting Ministry of Social Development research paper that I read called “Offending by Children in New Zealand”. Author

Philip Spier, and Published in September 2016 showed the following of youth offending.

“An estimated one in 20 NZ children offend before the age of 14.

An estimated 5% of children from the 1995 to 1999 birth cohorts became known to Police in New Zealand for offending before reaching 14 years of age. Boys (7%) were twice as likely as girls (4%) to offend as children. Māori children were approximately three times more likely than non-Māori children to become known to Police as an offender by age 14.

This is the reality so what’s the answer?

The Queen sold at Auction for $1810.00. A Wonderful outcome with 100% of the proceeds going to the Rod Donald Banks Peninsula Trust. Thanks to all the bidders but especially thanks to the team at NGC Windows who had the winning bid.

The artwork now is sitting proudly at NGC Windows offices in Christchurch.

"Queen Kereru with her cloak of feathers " .

Thanks to all of the children who worked on this project, you guys are awesome - Avery Cook, Ruby Wesley, Ivy Wesley, Margot Farell, Audey Sparks, Eden Ryan, Josh Ward, Penny Ward, Bridget Hunt, Bella Gibson, Pippa Griffiths, Lucy Griffits, Tahlia Lang, Amelia Guthrie, Georgia Kelso, Emmy Clyne, Briar Clyne, Georgie Hyde, Maddie Hyde, Nathan Muir, Emma Wescombe, Harmony van der Merwe, Grace Ambrose-Moore, Mady Moran-Jefferies, Anastazja Kaczmarczyk, Sage Walker, Aki Walker