Benevolence took the shape of bowls at the American School of Doha (ASD) over the weekend. The Empty Bowls initiative, headed by ASD ceramics teacher Dian Ritter, successfully held its fifth annual Empty Bowls Evening.
Under the direction of Ritter, ASD students crafted ceramic bowls throughout the first semester. Students were required to not only make one bowl, but they were also required to teach three other people to make a ceramic bowl. All of these bowls were then sold during the evening which then entitled guests to unlimited soup, all Africa-inspired and prepared by ASD volunteers, throughout the evening, points out Chi-Yan Shang, IB CAS Coordinator, ASD, in a note on the event.
Empty Bowls at ASD supports its home grown, student-initiated service project, Footy 4 Freedom (F4F) which refurbishes and expands ASD’s adopted schools in Xinavane, Mozambique. F4F was started by former ASD student Lawrence Chaplin when he met a young boy in Mozambique who had been caught stealing vegetables from a garden to feed his family, as he had become their sole provider after the death of his father. From that point on, Chaplin was motivated to help that community.
Funds raised from previous Empty Bowls evenings have been used to refurbish three schools and most recently, to build a new school block for a community where students were studying in a makeshift structure made of sticks, Shang explains. “All of the ASD’s projects in Mozambique are supported by South African sugar company Tongaat Hulett’s Corporate Social Investment Programme,” he says.
Funds from this year’s event will also be used to continue building ASD’s new adopted school in Kenya, the Machakos Education Centre which is also the focus of this year’s ASD Annual Fund, the ASD’s main fundraising drive this year. The Machakos Education Centre is a project started by one of ASD’s former Security Guards, Robert David, and adopted by ASD’s National Honour Society Chapter who have had a key leadership role in supporting its development. Multiple student groups at ASD throughout all divisions have worked to fundraise for Machakos and its corporate partners now include Al Fardan Group, the project’s premier sponsor. Ritter’s Empty Bowls evening raised well over QR7,000. 
An international project to fight hunger, Empty Bowls is personalised by artists and art organisations on a community level. Its promotion and growth is managed by Imagine/RENDER, a non-profit organisation, whose mission is “to create positive and lasting change through the arts, education, and projects that build community”. That said, each community’s events are self-developed and independent.
On their official website emptybowls.net, Imagine/RENDER say: “Our major project is the Empty Bowls Project, an international grassroots effort to raise both money and awareness in the fight to end hunger. This project represents what we do best – develop creative, exciting, and powerful models that are replicable and scalable by others wishing to work for social justice.” The project expands one group of concerned artists and students at a time, and events are currently held in many areas in the United States and Canada, often in conjunction with the United Nations sponsored World Food Day. Empty Bowls now supports food related charities around the world and has raised millions of dollars to aid in the fight against hunger.
At the ASD weekend event, the Doha Community Orchestra (DCO) provided the entertainment for the evening, providing sets of music from a variety of different genres under the direction of ASD’s own Brita Fray. ASD’s Creative Arts Support Team (CAST) sponsored side-dishes during the event, a further testament to the commitment of ASD’s Fine Arts programme to humanitarian service projects, Shang pointed out in his piece.
F4F is one of ASD’s flagship international community service projects and organisers said that the Empty Bowls evening has taken its place among the many traditions at ASD. Among other interesting initiatives of ASD is its Learning Service Program, which encourages all members, stakeholders and partners of the ASD community to reach out and become positive, active global citizens. In doing so, the ASD says it “typically strives to foster student initiated projects” with a focus on development, conservation or education.


Related Story