Students are busy at the Echoes of Truth summer program at Overton High School producing an original musical and artwork. Jason Hunt, an Overton High graduate, paints a Beale Street scene. The four-week program culminates in a silent auction and the show "Beyond the Journey" at the Orpheum on Thursday. Funds from some of the pieces go to help students in Mzuzu, Malawi.
Mariel Lane of Bolton High gets fitted for her costume for the musical production by Eboni Dowell, an Overton High student, and Sarah Harper, a teacher at Northside High School.
Among the student artworks to be auctioned is this interesting portrait by David Brown.
A schoolhouse in Mzuzu, Malawi, has a metal roof now courtesy of funds from Echoes of Truth. The African nation's students are no longer at the mercy of the elements.
Elizabeth Cirwa of Mzuzu is pen pals with White Station graduate Ali Rohrbacher.
"Everyone calls me Ali. I am an 18-year-old girl from Memphis, Tennessee, a state in the South in the United States of America."
It is a simple introduction that the American girl hopes will spark an international friendship.
In a few weeks, Alissandra "Ali" Rohrbacher's letter will land in the hands of a student in Mzuzu, Malawi. Ali has never been to the city in southeastern Africa, but she feels a connection to it. Ali is one of nearly 130 local teenagers spending the summer learning about and raising money for Mzuzu, through an organization called Echoes of Truth.
"It is basically an arts career training program for singers, dancers, actors, videographers and painters."
That's how Ali, a painter, explained the program to her assigned pen pal, Elizabeth Cirwa, to whom she is writing for the first time.
The Malawi outreach is an emerging component of the 12-year-old creative arts program. The main goal during the four-week workshop is for the teenagers and young adults to produce an original musical and artwork.
Titled "Beyond the Journey," this year's production will be at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Orpheum. A silent auction of about 50 original acrylic paintings and customized chairs will take place before the show. The proceeds from some designated pieces will be donated to missionaries working to build schools in Mzuzu.
In the past, some paintings have sold for as much as $1,000. One of the Malawi charity pieces, an African-inspired portrait by 18-year-old colorist David Brown, is already catching the eye of local art patrons.
For these socially conscious young artists who audition to be in the program, life is more demanding than Disney's flowery "High School Musical." Some ride the bus across town to get to the program at Overton High School each day. Others are balancing Echoes in addition to other summer jobs.
The students receive a summer stipend of at least $720 for participating in the program. In return, they are expected to behave and perform like professional artists during the seven-hour work day.
The program costs about $180,000 to produce each year. It is funded by proceeds from ticket and art sales, a grant from the mayor's office and local philanthropists.
Echoes founder Julia Russell Ormiston admits that there is a paradox in the nonprofit, which must keep a close watch on its finances, reaching out to help the Mzuzu charity.
"Why do the poor tithe in church? Why do you give back or give to anybody?" she said. "I think it's part of morality, part of our moral fiber to help someone who is less fortunate."
For many Americans, Malawi is just another country in the epicenter of the AIDS crisis. Or it is the birthplace of pop singer Madonna's adopted son, David. For Ormiston, it is a country of people who persevere despite insufficient basic resources and an overwhelmed educational system.
The retired Memphis City Schools arts specialist became interested in the plight of Malawi children in 2004 when a relative connected her with Malawi-based education advocate Levi Hyondo. To build an elementary school in Malawi costs about $20,000, she learned. By comparison, Shelby County Schools spent $9.4 million to construct the three-year-old Bailey Station Elementary School in Collierville.
Ormiston personally raised about $2,500 to help with Mzuzu school construction, as a memorial to her late husband, Mike Ormiston. Transformed by the experience, she wanted to impart to Echoes students the importance of charity and global connectivity.
"I just started thinking about one of the major things I would like to see in American education, and that's instilling a sense of service," she said.
Last year, Echoes participants raised about $1,000 to pay for a steel roof on a Mzuzu school.
Previously, the children who attended classes in the shell of a schoolhouse were at the mercy of the elements, explained Hyondo in an e-mail to Ormiston earlier this year: "These projects we are doing here are always done in phases due to shortage of funds. This allows us to use the buildings even if they are not fully completed."
Russell hopes to send Hyondo a laptop in the future so that the Memphis and Mzuzu students can communicate via e-mail.
For now, however, they are relying on the Postal Service. At the end of camp, the Memphis students will mail a box of letters, photos, T-shirts, cassette tapes and other trinkets they think represent American life.
"We also included cameras, which hopefully you won't mind using to take photographs of your houses, friends, family, clothing, school, town. Basically, please take pictures of anything that is important to you," said Ali in her letter to Elizabeth.
The recent White Station High School graduate wants a deeper understanding of the young woman in the gold dress she knows only through photos. She also wants to shrink the "huge leap of culture" between the United States and the nation called "The Warm Heart of Africa."
"In writing you, I hope that you will respond so that we can both gain a greater cultural perspective, of a world far from our own, and hopefully make a new friend."
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