At Last!

It is with great JOY I post this today.  Finally after 39 days, our project and murals are complete.  The next best thing will be hearing Joseph Kony has been captured and held accountable for his crimes.  In the meantime, we celebrate our accomplishment and are grateful to share it with the world.

This project has carved a lasting memory in my soul.  The students in Mod 5 and the hundreds of others who worked on this project have taught me the power of self-affirmation and believing in the impossible.  They have embraced the idea of turning awareness into action.  They have chosen to speak up in opposition to something, rather than turn their heads away from information that may be unpleasant to read about,  hear about, think about, or look at.  If my students remember only one thing this school year, I hope it will be everything this project has encompassed:

~SPEAK up for INJUSTICE
~PARTICPATE in your community, state, country and world- you can make a difference
~CHANGE only happens when people TAKE ACTION
~LEARN from the PAST and use that knowledge to make each day BETTER
~HELP OTHERS IN NEED no matter how near or far they live from you

Some stats on our project:

~We officially collected, washed, counted, and sorted 40, 563 caps.

~We used about 3,852 caps on our mural-We have chosen to have each cap represent 8 children of the 30,000+  abducted in Central Africa by Joseph Kony.

~We used liquid adhesive to glue on the caps, but not all of them stuck so it took almost 14 pounds of screws to secure the caps to the murals.

~We chose a wide variety of caps to go on our mural, but the color and design dictated how many and which size we chose.  We tried to take at least one cap from as many donations as possible.

~The first mural has a picture of an village in Africa with Joseph Kony's face looming in the sky. We chose to use a combination of caps and artwork on this mural.  There are close to 850 caps on this mural.  The middle mural(2nd mural) contains about 2,700 caps.  This mural says, "STOP KONY."  It also has the symbol from Invisible Children.  The third mural, is a picture of a child soldier wearing a sash of bullets under a dark and ominous sky.  This mural has nearly 300 caps on it.  The caps on this mural highlight the dark sky, and the bullets worn by the soldier.  The bullets are fastened with 19 gauge-1mm wire.  We thought this would give the mural a unique look.  There are also bullets scattered on the ground.  The intent or message of the three murals is to raise awareness of who Joseph Kony is and what he has done to central Africa.  We hope each person that views this mural will begin to have a conversation about stopping atrocities like this world wide.  No child anywhere on this earth should be forced to be a child soldier.  When you look at this mural we hope you feel the same.

We hope this mural makes you have a conversation about keeping all children from child slavery, human trafficking and being child soldiers.

~ The leftover caps will be used for future projects, others will be donated to other schools who are wanting to create a mural of any design or topic, and the caps that are not the sizes we need will be recycled appropriately.

~The murals will be placed in our school for all to see.  When mounted on the wall our mural will be 8 ft. by 12ft.

~We used a combination of interior and acrylic paints.

~The drawing on this mural was done by Maddy Genskow(Excelsior Middle School) and Samantha Carpenter(Linn-Mar High School).

~The painting was done by several students, including Samantha, Maddy, and Mrs. Barry.

Sam putting on finishing touches.

Mrs. Barry and Sam on her last day painting.

 ~We received cap donations from ten area businesses and organizations and hundreds of students, teachers, family, and friends.

~More than 5,600 people have viewed our blog world-wide.

Kyle, Jake, and Josh checking the LRA tracker on the Invisible Children Website.  Another impressive thing about this group of students..... how intrinsically motivated they have been to complete this project.

We humbly thank all of you who helped us reach our goal by collecting caps, donating plywood, or items we needed, letting us borrow screw drivers, paintbrushes, etc.   Each and every cap counted and each and everyone of you made this possible.  Thank you for being a part of something BIG!  One day I hope you will be able to say, "I helped bring Joseph Kony to justice."

Kind Regards,
Debra R. Barry
7th grade Social Studies Teacher
Excelsior Middle School