Alsama’s Art Project: Art, Humanity & Bioethics
By Renata S Beman, PhD
This project was inspired by hope. It started when I met the Alsama project after seeing a journalistic report on Sky News. It was love at first sight, and after a few meetings, the concept of an art initiative was born. It was driven by the importance of finding happiness in times of hardship, the need for love in humanity, and the skill of recognising the importance of each person’s value side by side with awareness of what dehumanises us. This small initiative was driven by the thought that even small actions can have significant positive effects. Inspired by the principle of personalist bioethics subsidiarity, this project embraces the importance of the power of decisions when they are taken on the ground, from the seed of a community closest to where they will have their effect and flourish. We hope this initiative will catalyse art, hope and education, spreading the word of peace and supporting Alsama’s extraordinary mission of positive change in the lives of refugee children in Lebanon through education. Alsama’s project won the Congress Literacy Award 2024.
The project is divided into 3 phases:
- Online courses
- Practical Workshop
- Exhibition
Phase I: The online classes started on the 23rd of January 2025, and we are concurrently fundraising for the art materials needed to make phases II and III happen. Please donate: https://gofund.me/53c87d9e
An Overview Phase I
The idea behind the online courses is to provide artistic, positive psychology and support to the well-being of the students of Alsama’s foundation. Inspired by the principles of philosophy, bioethics and BF Skinner’s importance of positive reinforcement in education, Dr Renata S Beman, with Mrs BoshraYassin (Art Alsama), worked together to select ten topics that students will engage in and will be the foundations for their artwork creation. With an interdisciplinary approach, each topic will be designed to open the perspective of questioning the world from a diverse standpoint, and following Alsama’s model that embraces the importance of making students think for themselves and being confident in their life choices and uniqueness.
The topics of the online classes are:
- Healing through love
- Wondering raises questions
- Breaking the cycle of life
- Inner Light or Self-discovery
- Emotions Unveiled (males only topic)
- The human struggle
- Faces of resilience
- Hope amidst chaos
- Cultural Mosaic
So far, we successfully completed Healing through love and Wondering Raises Questions, and we are getting ready to star on Breaking the cycle of life in the first week of March. The whole process has been a learning experience that tested our sense of reliance and innovativeness. Due to the number of students (over 100) each topic/class needs to be repeated, and the first classes helped us to adapt and pilot the best ways to present the material. One thing for sure is our commitment to present a well design tuition, academically and creatively sound to provide the students the opportunity to truly immerse in the topic and the experience.
To give an idea the format, the classes are divided with the presentation of a class material, from philosophy, sociology, behaviour to the arts. Students are welcomed to share their thoughts. The topic Healing though love is a very special topic for us, because it was not only the official opening of the project but also, we discussed with the students the philosophy of care, question about the importance of love and friendship. Some students got emotional, some cried. We discussed that caring expressions care be done in the simplest ways. Prompting the importance of exercising our sense of empathy and support each other around us. During the classes, I am always joking by asking the students to remember and try to wear our “invisible care glasses” to see better the person close to us and to always try to put ourselves on the shoes of the other without judgment.
One student commented, that even despite not having financial resources if she sees a friend that needs a little support, sometimes she just sits beside them and says many words with her silence of a simple smile. Healing though love embrace the process in which a bad situation will improve by making the other feeling well again. Then we move to the second part of the class, and we look at care and love expressed in the arts by discussing the friendship expressed in the work of Winslow Homer, On the Stile, 1878, watercolour, the classic work of Jacopo Bassano “the Good Samaritan” we discuss importance of charity to help a stranger.
Miss Mrs Boshra Yassin always prepares a selection of beautiful, colour local and national art works with fantastic slides shows. And the nice part of the class is when we say to each that “we care for you” it is that message that we want that each child to remember.
Regarding to the other topics you need to keep following our journey, one thing for sure do not underestimate us because we are powered by creativity and joy.
Since October of 2024 Mrs Boshra Yassin and I have held weekly meeting; our coffee catching up morning still going and we try our best to be there, connecting against all the odds that the world and the war present to these children.
It is a great privilege to support Alsama, to get to know their amazing work, and I enjoy working with Mrs Boshra Yassin very much, as we found in each other a shared love for the children’s education and the arts. It is also great to see bioethical principles such as a common good and re-building senses of dignity and subsidiarity alive. After all, children at Alsama are not only refugee children, but they are primarily children above all, and we believe they deserves all rights to succeed and to be recognised as a person. Sometimes we need to remind the world that refugee children are humans too.
We are grateful for the invitation of Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum University, Faculty of Bioethics – Prof Alberto García Gómez and Chairholder of the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and Human Rights, to be our first exhibition location; we hope it will be a fantastic kickstart to many more invitations. We don’t have words to express our gratitude towards the Uffizi Museum Firenze (Gallerie degli Uffizi) for welcoming us to record our message in the famous Sala di Sandro Botticelli, that gave us and our children hope and reassurance in the importance of charity, the importance of the universal language of art, and the people that are supporting with donations. Thank you!
The exhibition will open first to students, families, teachers, and everyone who helps and supports them at Alsama. Then, it will travel to Roma, where it will be showcased at Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum University, endorsed by the Department of Bioethics and Human Rights, which is the chair of UNESCO Bioethics. We hope it will also travel to locations in Firenze, Cambridge, and Brazil.
Dr Renata S Beman is reaching out to friends and organisations that can help support this initiative of hope. We are looking for donations that will go towards art materials and the exhibitions. There is no commercial gain or commercial intention in this project.
