At Art Refuge in India, Butterflies are Free

 Mariellen Ward and the children at Art Refuge

I often focus on volunteer vacations in this column. Today, I would like to highlight a wonderful organization and delightful volunteer traveler, Mariellen Ward, who shares her experiences volunteering at Art Refuge:

"It was the love that got me. Ironically, I wasn’t prepared for it.

I landed my volunteer job as an Assistant Art Therapist with Art Refuge more than a year before I actually arrived in Dharamsala, India to begin my duties. I would be working alongside program manager Ama Adhe, a hero to Tibetan people and an inspiration to everyone who meets her. She survived 27 years in a Chinese prison for helping Tibetan freedom fighters; today she runs the Art Refuge program for children from her home on the rooftop of the Tibetan refugee reception centre in Dharamsala. Her warm, compassionate and feisty spirit was never broken; not even dented. I was (and remain) in awe.

Finally, the day came when I was to report in at the Tibetan reception centre in Dharamsala. It was a hard climb, past cavernous, bleak dormitory rooms, towards the unknown and uncertain. When I got to the rooftop terrace, I sat down, winded. Immediately, two tiny Tibetan girls, sisters, ran towards me, jumped on me and started hugging and kissing me. They spent the entire morning draped over me, allowing love to flow openly, generously and completely. I had prepared myself for difficulty, not for love. In the face of this outpouring, I simply melted. And by softening, I knew what to do.

I spent the next month playing with the children, loving them, allowing them to love me and just being there for them. It was love they needed – not art, not therapy. They had been ripped from their homes and families in Chinese-occupied Tibet, and sent to live in exile, in India, in hopes of a better life – a life where they would get an education, opportunity and the chance to openly live their Tibetan culture and religion.

But first, they needed love to set them right.

When children first arrive in Dharamsala, they seem shell-shocked and unwell. They often have bad colds and skin sores. And it’s no wonder. To escape from Tibet, they have to walk for many days through vast mountain passes, facing cold, starvation and gun fire from armed border guards.

  Ama Adhe and children

When I started volunteering at Art Refuge, there were about 20 children in the program. I remember one boy, about 12 years old, who seemed vague and a little angry – a rare emotion among peace-loving Tibetans. He didn’t really engage in any of the activities and seemed to lack confidence. I felt worried about him, but sat with him to help him to write his story. On the back of a drawing he had done, we helped him write about his family, his journey and his feelings. In the days afterwards I noticed that he began to smile, to play and to enjoy himself for the first time. By the time I left at the end of the month, he seemed like a normal boy, and was ready to go to school. He just needed someone who cared enough to hear him.

While I was there, it was butterfly season in Dharamsala. Suddenly, the fresh mountain air filled with all sorts of butterflies. Hundreds of tiny white ones twirled by, like clouds, and large colourful ones floated up from the valley below. Shira, the other volunteer, and I taught all the children to make butterflies out of coloured paper and pipe cleaners. When they went for lunch, Shira and I hung all the butterflies from the ceiling. The children’s eyes lit up with excitement when they came back and saw their butterflies dancing in the breeze. Reborn, free and happy."