Hello all, my name is Naftali and I recently wrote a Top Story on yspacesmc.org.  The Top Story I wrote talked about my garden and many other food-related issues the garden has lead me to.  One of the things my garden lead me to was a great place called Pie Ranch.  Over time, I have become more involved in Pie Ranch and have attended multiple conferences with them as a youth representative so to speak.  At one of the conferences I went to, I saw a truly inspiring presentation by a woman named Lily Yeh. 

Lily Yeh is the founder of an organization called Barefoot Artists.  Her organization’s goal is to work with poor people in communities around the world to help to make a better future for themselves and the world as a whole.  The organization does this by working with members of the community to produce artwork that transforms once rundown places into beautiful spaces for the community to enjoy.  One of their most recent projects was called the Rwanda Healing project. The project got the community members up, active and moving as they transformed their community one step at a time through art. 

Along with providing the community with beautiful art, the project allowed some of the emotional wounds brought about by the Rwandan genocide to be healed.  Many people often overlook the importance of emotional health but the project allowed many community members to overcome the emotional trauma of the experience.  Numerous studies have shown that it is much easier to obtain a higher level of physical health if you have good emotional health.  Likewise, art is often associated with improving emotional health and well being.  This project inspired me because it used art as a way to emotionally heal a community that has faced such immense hardship in the past.