SORROW AND SUPPORT
ALBANIAN CHILDREN PAINT IN SYMPATHY
By Stacy Hawkins Adams
Richmond Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
Monday, Oct. 8, 2001
When airplanes struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last month, children across the world shuddered.
Televised images of destruction and grief pierced the hearts of many of them, including youths in war-torn Kosovo. To express their sorrow and show support for American children who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, 34 Albanian boys and girls picked up crayons and paint and went to work.
Their sentiments - thoughtfully created pieces of art - arrived in Richmond about a week ago, via the Christian Children's Fund.
"We're talking about a group of children who know what it's like, firsthand, to lose relatives and be in situations of uncertainty, with lots of questions about what's happening," said John F. Schultz, president of the Christian Children's Fund, which has headquarters off West Broad Street.
Soon after the terrorist acts, the nonprofit agency asked its employees around the globe to help the 557,000 children participating in Christian Children's Fund programs express their feelings about the tragedy.
Using art as therapy for children is fairly common, said Schultz. Yet, when the children's drawings arrived from Kosovo, Christian Children's Fund officials were moved by the intensity of the work.
"In some ways, you can say it was as though they were reliving their own experiences," Schultz said.
Children who are primarily ages 10 to 12 and Muslim drew pictures of the World Trade Center engulfed in smoke and flames, of children crying or holding candles, and of doves, symbolizing peace, perched on American flags.
One drawing depicts a person trapped in the World Trade Center, waving a white handkerchief out of a window.
The children also wrote messages, such as "USA we are with you" and "Stop Dhunes," which means "Stop the violence."
Two drawings feature photos. One is the picture of a solemn-faced boy in a wheelchair. His eyes bear the trauma caused by war. His message is simple: "We are with you."
"America is really seen as a special place by everyone," Schultz said. "It also is seen as something of a safe haven. When these children saw these terrible acts of violence in a place where everyone has images of peace and security, it had an impact on them."
The Christian Children's Fund will display the drawings on Thursday during a "Remember the Children" rally from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.
Afterward, the pieces will be displayed in museums across the nation and in New York, as part of a World Trade Center mural project that just got under way.
"We want to ultimately get them to children affected by [the terrorist attacks]," said Toni Radler, spokeswoman for the Christian Children's Fund, "but we have to be careful, because some of them are so raw."
© Richmond Times-Dispatch
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