Houghton Artists Travel to Sierra Leone

Earlier this year, Renee Roberts, Direct of Exhibitions at Ortlip Gallery, and Jillian Sokso, Assistant Professor of Art, traveled to Sierra Leone for a skills training trip that brought together their gifts in art with acts of ministry.

The two were asked to come to Sierra Leone by a Houghton alum on the board of  Women of Hope International, an NGO that ministers to disabled women in Sierra Leone with the mission statement to “equip and disciple women with disabilities to become life-long followers of Christ who facilitate holistic transformation in their families and communities.”

Women with disabilities in Sierra Leone often face immense challenges. Many have difficulty performing basic tasks, such as drawing water, and sometimes earning a means of providing for their families is difficult. “Some of the ladies we worked with were amputees, a lot of them became disabled through preventable disease like measles or polio and lost the use of some of their limbs or [had] some sort of mobility issue, ” said Sokso. These women sometimes even become outcasts and their families may disown them because of their disabilities.

“The point of this skills training project or skills training trip,” said Roberts during a GCF meeting on

March 12, “was to facilitate classes for these disabled women who don’t have any other way to provide for their families or for themselves because they are seen as outcasts.” Papermaking and crafts help provide these women with skills to integrate themselves back into society while also making a profit, and it was to this end that Roberts and Sokso brought their talents as professional artists.

The women at the organization had already been making stationary, said Sokso, “But they were using this cheap Chinese cardstock that wasn’t really beautiful, so they were looking for papermakers.” Roberts and Sokso, after being requested to come to Sierra Leone last year, raised money through Printed Matter Press, the Dean’s Office and a faculty fund to help with the finances of the trip.

“The whole entire trip was so amazing to see God taking these things and opening these doors,” said Roberts.

While there, Sokso and Roberts gave classes on how to make paper and also gave a crafting class. Though they had to adjust certain papermaking techniques while in Sierra Leone, as the means and tools for producing paper were a little different than at home, overall the program provided their students with skills that they can use by selling their paper on the fair trade market.

“We talk about integration of faith and learning.  But for me, this was the first thing that I did that I could authentically live out not only God’s giftedness to me and my life, but also to actually help somebody learn a skill that could be profitable to them,” said Sokso, “It was a very visual example of how you can use your gifts to help somebody else.”

Sokso also found the comparison between the fibers that they used in papermaking and the women they worked with very appropriate. “A lot of these women are told throughout their lives that they are worthless or that a demon has cursed them. A lot of their families have literally thrown them away,” she said, “But in the end we held up this grass we used to make paper and said ‘Did you ever think that anything like this could be made into something beautiful?’”