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| This is Emma |
Emma is the Art Director for Art Relief International (ARI). Emma, whose is Canadian, became familiar with ARI by being a volunteer in 2013 for 3 months. She loved the organization. She has not been working with them for a year and a half. This job has made her want to go on to become an art therapist in order to continue to promote art as a form of expression and therapy.
Emma explained that ARI’s cultural campus is located in Chiang Mai, Thailand and offers opportunities for volunteers to come and work with local community artistically. Their staff includes 2 foreign paid staff, 2 Thai staff and 15 volunteers. ARI goes to all their clients. Some of the places they work are within prisons, single mothers groups, refugee populations and school-aged children. Their exposure to these groups can be anywhere between a one-time visit, so a weekly/monthly on-going relationship, for between 1-2 hours for each visit. ARI sees their work as allowing others to express themselves and offering a time to relax and meditate through art. Most of their volunteers are coming from other countries and stay between 3 weeks and 6 months. This presents part of their challenge as an organization, which is the turnover of volunteers. Emma explained that it often takes a couple of weeks to get “plugged” into their programs, and if volunteers leave after only a couple of weeks, it does not give much time to get comfortable with the world. Another challenge is the language barriers between volunteers and participants. ARI only has one paid staff member who speaks the local languages, making it difficult to talk to participants. However, Emma said that the positive outcomes are a sense of community, even without a common language. Lots of the sessions focus on self-confidence building, particularly with the children they work with.
Emma talked about some of the opportunities in the near future being reaching out to more of the local population in order to incorporate more culturally appropriate art into their programs. They have begun to work with Chiang Mai University to get their students more involved. She identified that volunteering is not within the Thai culture the same way it is ingrained in many western cultures. This creates a challenge when they try to include more Thai people into their art education.
ARI relies on private donors and volunteer fees to fund all their programs. It costs volunteers about $700USD to volunteer with ARI. Therefore, this is also a consistent hardship and that may help explain for their slim staffing. Many nonprofits will echo difficulties with funding, particularly those that are smaller. However, ARI is working hard to work consistently with the communities that they’ve built relationships with. They are a passionate group that had big hopes for the future and lots of room to grow.
ARI’s Thai employees serve as drivers and a translator. Emma identified the need to take on more local influence in order to better serve their community. Without that, ARI is at risk of continuing to push “western” ideals and culture onto Thai communities. Although ARI is offering a great opportunity for people from other nations to come and engage with some Thai communities, there is the question of who are the people they are truly serving?
