'A Thousand Words': High school artists supply children's portraits as part of global art initiative

From an artist's perspective, Hailey O'Neill thought the girl in the photograph might be easy enough to draw.

She had a symmetrical face and "big, big eyes" O'Neill said -- something the sophomore at Bluffton High School is good at drawing.

But what O'Neill had not been prepared for was the smile.

"They all had these big smiles," she said, recalling the day her class got its first look at the batch of photographs from the orphanage in Afghanistan.

It's all part of a class assignment O'Neill and other students from several area high schools are participating in this year as part of a much larger, global initiative.

Called The Memory Project, the initiative was founded in 2004 by Wisconsin college student Ben Schumaker.

Both the initiative and the nonprofit organization behind it work to provide children facing extreme poverty or dire circumstances with a portrait they can call their own.

As Hilton Head Island High School art teacher Monique Dobbelaere explained, many of the children identified by the initiative have never had a photo taken of themselves, let alone a painted portrait. The project is part of the curriculum.

"Really because of the student interest," she said. "It's nice to know they have a wealth of compassion but sometimes it's just about providing them opportunities to express that."

Dobbelaere, who has worked with Schumaker for more than a decade, is coordinating this year's efforts involving area schools.

Every year Dobbelaere receives a new batch of photos which the students choose from. The students then spend the semester trying to capture the child's likeness in a variety of medium.

The portraits are then delivered to the children and their responses are videotaped so that students back in the states can see their child's reaction.

So far Dobbelaere and her students have supplied portraits to children in such countries such as India, Nicaragua, Honduras and Haiti.

And new this year, Dobbelaere has enlisted the help of other area art teachers at Bluffton High School, Hilton Head Preparatory and Hilton Head Christian Academy. Students at three of the high schools started the year by taking a field trip to Northridge Cinemas to see "He Named Me Malala," a documentary about the young Pakistani girl, Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by Taliban after speaking out on behalf of girls' education.

Yousafzai not only survived, she went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize -- the youngest person to ever do so.

The story of Yousafzai and the children in the photograph's own situations are not lost on the students, Dobbelaere said.

"That was part of the reason why I thought seeing the movie was so important," she said, "so that the students can have a deeper understanding of life outside of our community."

In addition, the students are participating in other activities such as writing projects that tie in with the portrait initiative and are working to raise money to send to this year's adopted school, an all-girls orphanage in Kabul, Afghanistan.

For Hailey O'Neill, the girl in the photo has left an indelible mark on the sophomore.

"It definitely opens your eyes to things," she said.

She doesn't know much about the smiling girl other than her name is Samai, but said she and her classmates hope they've done a good job.

O'Neill hopes the portraits become a way for the children to remember what they looked like when they were young.

"They say a picture is worth a thousand words," she said.

Follow reporter Mindy Lucas on Twitter at twitter.com/MindyatIPBG.

This story was originally published December 9, 2015 at 9:10 AM with the headline "'A Thousand Words': High school artists supply children's portraits as part of global art initiative."