I recently began writing for a small human-rights and film blog in New York. Whilst they're keen on my work, their readership does not take to 1,000 word pieces. You, alas, my few and unfortunate base, might be more forgiving. Enjoy.
Interested in why her high-school son was lobbying to create awareness for Darfur in Washington, Cynthia Davis, a seasoned decorative artist and painter, began doing her own research. Before long, she was devouring countless books and lectures in her local community. Nonetheless, it was not until she met Gabriel Bol Deng at a conference sponsored by her daughter’s club, buildOn, that she truly resolved to become personally involved in resolving the conflict. After hearing the former lost boy speak, Cynthia was incredibly touched by his humanity, his profound sense of family values. Here was a man whose life had been torn by the ravages of war and exile for two decades and yet still shared a remarkably similar sensibility to hers. Almost immediately thereafter, she began collaborating with his organization, Hope for Ariang, vowing to help his groundbreaking efforts to educate and empower women in the native village from which he was chased as a boy in 1987.
Cynthia had always been interested in Africa, though always from a distance. Raised in a Jewish household, the reality of the Holocaust was never far away. All the same, the prospect of genocide in Africa loomed on a distant horizon; she was well aware of the situation in Rwanda, among others – though again, from a seemingly inapproachable distance. That all changed the day she met Gabriel. The latter, as earlier mentioned, was forced to flee his native village of Ariang in present-day South Sudan as fighting between government-backed Janjaweed mercenaries and local rebels loomed imminent. A lost boy par excellence, he wandered by foot across the barren desert to seek shelter in Ethiopia, during which he and other castaways nearly starved to death. Not for twenty years would he return to his native village; by this time his parents had already perished. Empowered by the sheer tenacity of his will to survive, he vowed to give back to his community. In May 2007, he established Hope for Ariang, the organization that Cynthia Davis would do so much to support in the years to come.
In the months and years following her encounter with Gabriel, Cynthia fought tirelessly to raise funds and public awareness for Hope for Ariang – becoming a Board Member in 2009 and playing a major role in raising funds to build the village’s first school. Similar fundraising efforts allowed the village to drill six new wells – after which their perennial struggle against cholera has greatly abated (now that villagers had access to a clean water source). Girls whose days were previously consumed with long marches to fetch highly polluted water could now attend school. Not, however, that said facilities would appear from thin air. When she began working with Gabriel, there was not a brick to be seen in the entire village – much less the means with which to produce them. Through her and Gabriel’s efforts – among others - they soon acquired the capacity to produce 300,000 – enough to construct an edifice housing 500 students. The difference in the quality of life of the village between 2008 and now is more than palpable. All the same, Cynthia had yet to truly synthesize her professional with her political and philanthropic activities: a decorative artist by trade, she longed to combine her art with her efforts to empower women in Ariang.
When an acquaintance from West Hartford nominated her to become a Carl Wilken’s Fellow, she jumped at the chance to join the “12-month program that provides a diverse set of emerging citizen leaders with the tools and training to build sustained political will to end genocide.” Named in honor of the only American to remain in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, Fellows are selected to raise awareness and build strong relationships with local congressmen toward this end. Once accepted, Cynthia went to Washington in February for the group’s inaugural induction. Here she met an exciting and dynamic cast of fellow activists and artists, one of whom, Rebecca Davis, had already established a dance company for Darfur. She also learned about Naomi Natale, an accomplished installation artist, photographer and social activist who would later encourage her to use her artistic gifts to further her efforts with Hope for Ariang. Shortly thereafter, Cynthia created the The Sudan Canvas Project, a grassroots art collective whose paintings create awareness for the plight of the South Sudanese and whose proceeds go to educate and empower the women of Ariang.
Within no time, she received an enormous amount of positive feedback: the International Decorative Artists League and the Fairfield-based Pink House Painters immediately came on board. Similarly, the Director of the Fairfield Arts Center, who quickly became familiar with the Canvas initiative, donated free space to the project within which to showcase their members’ work. Altogether, some forty-two artists have now contributed to the Sudan Canvas Project, many of whom had only been scarcely familiar with the geopolitical and humanitarian situation in Sudan. That, Cynthia told me, is one of the most important aspects of her initiative: in order to contribute to the project, the artists involved must first come to terms with the conflict and engage the suffering and humanity of their subjects. Having delved into these peoples’ lives and predicaments, they become complicit in Cynthia’s efforts not just to raise awareness but do actually do something about it - symbiosis between art and politics, if ever there were one.
On November 27th, Cynthia Davis will be exhibiting and auctioning the entirety of the works hitherto made for the Sudan Canvas Project at the Fairfield Arts Center in Connecticut. More than just paintings, the exhibit will also contain a number of photographs and interviews with women from the village – a detailed account of their lives and struggles. Such, Cynthia says, is the threefold purpose of the event: to create awareness, to educate and to empower the women of Ariang. Taken together, she hopes the exhibit will be a powerful call to action. How many works do they hope to sell? I neglected to ask her. Among those, however, will be one of her own - a painting in which three women lift their weathered arms in jubilation to welcome the return of a distant son. They were celebrating the return of Gabriel Bol Deng, the lost boy who’d come home after twenty years in the wilderness to rekindle the flame of hope for Ariang.
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