Extreme Operations: August 2012

Friday 31 August 2012

Shattered

My son painted this picture after he heard about Operation Extreme Love, Thailand. He wrote the following comment about it:

"This was the final piece for my final major project for the first year of my college course.

I normally prefer not to tell people the story behind the art work. I like people to be able to view the art work and come up with their own interpretations. The portrait has a story of its own to tell. But I decided to share it this time. Please spend some time looking at the art work for a little bit before reading this though.

Before I started painting this art work, someone told me about the sex trafficking industry in Thailand. A lot of young girls are forced into it and are completely unprotected. I thought about how they should be kept safe inside their parents, partners, friends, or families protection but are not. They are exposed, abused, damaged and hurt. While painting this painting I had this in the back of my mind.I wanted the portrait to be beautiful but at the same time to express the great sadness, loss, pain, and abandonment the girl is feeling. The tears are of great sorrow.
The piece is called 'Shattered'."

How to Use this Blog - for new users

This blog describes thoughts, experiences, discoveries and impressions during short term assignments in Brazil, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar. These are entirely my own perceptions, and as such, may be inaccurate or misinformed at times. In no way should any of the agencies or people I work with be held responsible for any errors of information. As far as possible I try to make sure that inaccuracies are addressed when they are pointed out. Meanwhile, please forgive my ignorance.... I have so much to learn.

There is a lot of information about poverty, street children and human trafficking in general, and about the work of specific charities and organisations working to address it.

I have also included my notes from the various teaching sessions we had during XP's training schools: 'Operation Justice' (Cambodia) and 'Operation Extreme Love' (Thailand) of 2012, along with some notes from training sessions with Richard & Ingela Larsson Smith, who run 'Horses for Orphans' in Brazil.

Unlike websites, blogs run back to front, so if you want the whole story it will be useful to use the Blog Archive and read in date order, beginning in May 2012.

And if you scroll down, there is a 'search' option below, helpful if you want to know about a specific issue or country. Just type in a keyword and you will be shown where that word appears in the blog.