Be the Peace - Be the Hope gives back across the World

In 2012, two refugee camps were established in Northern Burkina Faso to house the thousands of displaced Malians who fled their homes to seek refuge from the surrounding nations' uprising extremism. Today, the camps are managed by IEDA Relief and UNHCR in partnership with the government of Burkina Faso.

In response to the magnitude of this refugee crisis, the "Be The Peace Be The Hope" program invited Houston students from 12 schools (CyFair ISD, HISD, Baker-Ripley Charter School, Post Oak School), four community centers, (Agape Development, India House, Taiwanese Heritage Society Houston, YMCA), and 20 Harris County Public Libraries to create over 600 powerful paintings with the objective to send them to the camps. The images depicted messages of Hope and Love for the children in refugee camps.   

Elise Sheppard, a Harris County Public Library librarian, told us, "Many high school and college students didn't know there were refugee camps around the world. This program had been an eye-opener for them. Many said they would like to volunteer and help."

In October 2016, our international team of 12 committed educators, art therapists, facilitators, and videographers* implemented the "Be The Peace-Be The Hope" Educational and Healing Arts Program for ten days in two refugee camps in Burkina Faso: Mentao and Goudebou (30,600 total refugees). We trained 20 permanent camp educators who assisted in the implementation and continuation of the program here.

As Jolie Guifayou, a Burkina Faso UNHCR program member stated: "It is a good program, it allows children to know themselves because when we know ourselves, we give ourselves value, but when we do not know who we are, sometimes we think we are not useful. You are coming with a program that puts children's life at the center, it's going to allow these children to imagine, to have hope, to understand that they are not unique in their suffering as refugee children. They will understand that they have value; they will understand that they have roots."

*The Be the Peace – Be the Hope Team in Burkina Faso included Karine Parker-Lemoyne (Head of the mission) Alicia Campos, Curry Glassell, Eisha Khan, Fadila Kibsgaard, Nishtha Joshi, Leila Kengueleoua, Cecilia Norman, Cynthia Ouedraogo, Naiyolis Palomo, Lex Parker, and Dimitri Pilenko as well as Noel Bezette-Flores, Caroline Edmundson and Britain Venner in Houston.

Grace House India is a non-profit, live-in facility that provides sanctuary and full-time care to some of rural India’s most vulnerable girls. The girls that reside there have  experienced unspeakable violence, abuse, poverty and loss of family. 

In July 2018, BTPBTH implemented its social and healing arts program to 40 girls between 6 and 14. Grace house provides a great support system where nurturing relationships can flourish. The girls are still struggling with the impact of past abuse and current situations including bullying and family violence. 

During the program, the students of Grace House were administered four separate surveys. These surveys reflected the following:

The largest percentage of positive change were in: Self-Efficacy, 35.53%, Respect, 22.69%, Resilience, 21.46%, Physical and Emotional Safety, 27.45%.  Creative Thinking, 9.86% and Relationships 4.6% were also statistically significant. The researchers propose that due to the strong relationships already developed between the children that the program did not see as high of an increase but still identified positive significant change. An approximately 46.15% decrease in anxiety between the pre and post administration of the anxiety survey was reported.    

Overall, the program was extremely successful. In the write-in portion of the survey, in response to item #6, “Do you have more hope after doing the Be the Peace-Be the Hope activities, if so, why?” 100% of the students stated “yes”, with most students stating that they enjoyed the “Healing Box” and learning to trust their friends in activities such as the “Circle of Trust”. Item #5 of the open-ended responses asked students, “What is one thing you learned about?” approximately 76% of the students responded, “Love”, 15% stated “Helpful”, 9 % “Respect”. 100% of the students stated that they liked “everything about the program”.

As Stacey Smith, the “Grace House India” founder stated: " We are so grateful to Karine Parker for introducing Be The Peace Be The Hope to the girls at Grace House India. Between the Circle of Trust, the Healing Box and the messages of Hope, we found our girls opening up to each other and the staff on campus in ways they never had before.  We were able to learn about past abuse and wounds as well as current situations the girls are trying to deal with on their own. Being able to build a bond of trust and allow the girls to express their pain through art was truly reforming for them. Especially those who had hidden things for years. Everyone was so much lighter and so full of hope knowing that we are one and that there are people who can be trusted and even understand what they are going through.”