Drawing Life’s Breath: Love My Life Art Program
Written by admin, June 12, 2015
June 12, 2015 – Teaches Youth to be Tobacco-Wise
Tonight a unique, youth-led art exhibit opened entitled “Love My Life” featuring the creative expressions of 10-14 year olds as they learned about living tobacco-wise.
What are you passionate about that you need your lungs for? This was the question posed to the group who participated in the Love My Life (LML) Tobacco Free workshops that ran for six weeks at the Art School of Peterborough. Local youth explored tobacco prevention through positive self-expression, and over six weeks they developed a 3-D visual diary representing mind, body, spirit.
“It certainly was an incredible experience watching as these 3-D visual diaries grew, and how the students positively expressed themselves as they explored the notion of life’s breath,” says Jenni Johnston, owner of the Art School of Peterborough. “Rather than focusing on the negatives of tobacco use they were able to create something beautiful by discovering the positive of living their lives tobacco free.”
The students met at the Art School for two-hour sessions and discussed topics such as how the media portrays tobacco, the importance of finding balance in life, addictions and its effect on the teenage brain and the harms of commercial tobacco. The curriculum was led, organized and created by six Peterborough Public Health Peer Leaders. After the peer-to-peer lessons the students would work on their sculpture facilitated by two staff at the School.
The figures represent mind, body and spirit. The mind represents mental health, body embodies physical health and spirit symbolizes core values and beliefs. During the first two weeks a mask was developed. On the third week the students develop a personal tattoo based on symbols that reflect themselves. Finally, during weeks four to six the body is created including the lungs where students explore “Life’s Breath.”
The #LoveMyLife program was originally developed by the Eastern Ontario Public Health in 2014. Other health units have been encouraged to participate in the program, and in 2015 PCCHU ran their first LML campaign. For more information on the Love My Life Tobacco Free program please visit http://www.lmlontario.com/.
-30-
For further information, please contact:
Brittany Cadence, Communications Supervisor
705-743-1000, ext. 391