Thursday's talk

Eek! Today's the day of the talk, and I wasn't prepared at all. Luckily an old school friend had got in touch and arranged to meet up for lunch so my mind was well distracted until we turned up at the gallery and started preparing for the evening.
Ama-la arrived courtsey of Karma Kabs again and Tim did a video of Tsering interviweing her about Art Refuge, the program and the children. As it was all in Tibetan, we have no idea what her replies were so will have to wait for a translator to go through the whole thing for us.

We borrowed loads of chairs from the restaurant across the road and waited anxiously while people filed in. I gave a brief explanation about the history of Art Refuge, the programme and Art Refuge UK. I then introduced Alyssa and Shira, 2 of our past volunteers and they talked a bit about what it's like from a volunteers experience. Then we introduced Ama-la who talked about what it's like for her there and how important it is for the chilren. We then encouraged quesions from the floor. We ended with Ama-la displaying a large piece of fabric onto which she had placed photographs of the children, and some of the artwork and explained her way along the rows of images. It was very poignant and the whole evening seemed to have a buzz (or maybe that was just my adrenaline flowing!)

And to end the day off nicely, I was called by a lady from Radio Free Asia who wanted to do a radio interview with me about the charity and Ama Adhe. That was fun!

Somehow though, no-one took any photos of the talk so you'll just have to imagine it...