Jana’s Friday Art Club

Jana’s Friday Art Club focuses on providing children with psychosocial support to strengthen their resilience, through engaging them in targeted workshops. Through the Art Club, children participate in creative art activities and interactive games to help them positively channel their fears and frustrations.

Children join to enjoy art activities conducted by an art specialist at the Al-JANA Center in Beirut. The main areas of focus were introducing the group to the basic elements in art, through play and experimentation, thus helping them develop their skills and understanding of basic drawing and design concepts throughout problem-solving activities.

After six years of working in art on Friday mornings at AL-JANA, an illustrated book (Arabic/ English) was published “Drawing and Design, Friday Mornings at Al Jana” which documented the concepts and processes participating children had been engaged in. Following this publication seven of the children’s original stories were published with their own illustration. Two of these stories, “The Uprooting and The Lebanese War”, initiated children’s engagement with their own and their family’s history. Other stories, “Two Children and Two Mothers” and “The Boy and the Insects” dealt with social issues and responsibility.

The Friday Art Club continues to stimulate children’s minds, creativity, and artistic productivity. Children draw, paint, and explore different coloring techniques. They learn the of making shadow puppets, the basic techniques of animation, stop-motion and much more.