This blog post highlights the wonderful work of an illustration student at the University of Dundee whose time in Uganda has inspired her most recent artwork on display this week in the University’s annual art exhibition, the Dundee Degree Show.
The artwork is that of Barbara Beek, who holds dual citizenship in Belgium and the United States. Beek’s time in Uganda last summer has inspired her work, which focuses on raising awareness and changing perspectives on malnutrition in Uganda.
Beek’s time in Uganda was spent with the charitable organization Little Big Africa, a hands-on organization that works efficiently and effectively throughout Africa to make life-changing impacts in local communities. Little Big Africa puts an emphasis on maximizing the effectiveness of their work at every step of the way, making every resource count toward making a difference, minimizing overhead, and working on a personal level with people across Africa. And among Little Big Africa’s many focal points of charity work is the Moringa oleifera tree and all that it has to offer.
Beek’s work focuses in particular on the great potential that the moringa tree holds for Uganda, where malnutrition continues to hold sway in many parts of the country. Beek’s work attempts to communicate this great potential to women and children in particular.
Her work accomplishes this in several ways, including the creation of a children’s exercise book meant to teach about moringa’s nutritional value, a counting tool which encourages mothers to use moringa leaf powder in their cooking, and a narrative embroidery showing how to grow and spread the moringa tree.
Beek’s work is a powerful example of functional art – artistic work that serves some kind of practical purpose. But Beek’s artwork goes beyond simple functionality, bridging the gap between art, function, charity, and activism. Her works, and many others like them, will sow the seeds for tomorrow’s community leaders who will lead the efforts to spread Moringa, build community, and eradicate malnutrition in as many places as possible.
See Barbara Beek’s page at the University of Dundee here.
Great work Barbara!
Portraying Malnutrition in Uganda Through Artistic Work
This blog post highlights the wonderful work of an illustration student at the University of Dundee whose time in Uganda has inspired her most recent artwork on display this week in the University’s annual art exhibition, the Dundee Degree Show.
The artwork is that of Barbara Beek, who holds dual citizenship in Belgium and the United States. Beek’s time in Uganda last summer has insipred her work, which focuses on raising awareness and changing perspectives on malnutrition in Uganda.
Beek’s time in Uganda was spent with the charitible organization “Little Big Africa”, a hands-on organization that works efficiently and effectively throughout Africa to make life-changing impacts in local communities. Little Big Africa puts an emphasis on maximizing the effectiveness of their work at every step of the way, making every resource count toward making a difference, minimizing overhead, and working on a personal level with people across Africa. And among Little Big Africa’s many focal points of charity work is the Moringa oleifera and all that it has to offer.
Beek’s work focuses in particular on the great potential that the moringa tree holds for Uganda, where malnutrition continues to hold sway in many parts of the country. Beek’s work attempts to communicate this great potential to women and children in particular.
Her work accomplishes this in several ways, including the creation of a children’s exercise book meant to teach about moringa’s nutritional value, a counting tool which encourages mothers to use moringa leaf powder in their cooking, and a narrative embroidery showing how to grow and spread the moringa tree.
Beek’s work is a powerful example of functional art – artistic work that serves some kind of practical purpose. But Beek’s artwork goes beyond simple functionality, bridging the gap between art, function, charity, and activism. Her works, and others like it, will sew the seeds for tomorrow’s community leaders who will lead the efforts to spread Moringa, build community, and eradicate malnutrition in as many places as possible.
See Barbara Beek’s page at the University of Dundee here.
Great work Barbara!
With so much talk in recent years of amazing single foods with the potential to perform miracles in health and nutrition, the word ‘superfood’ has become somewhat overused in the eyes of many health-conscious observers. These so-called ‘superfoods’ have the potential to help people lose weight, gain muscle, cleanse the digestive tract, and boost peoples’ overall health.
In the spirit of the United Nations’ labeling of 2011 as the ‘Year of Forests’, the UN-Sponsored ‘Year of Forests 2011′ campaign has stretched around the world, launching ambitious plans for planting millions of trees in 2011. In the city of Accra, Ghana, this has taken the form of 20,000 moringa seedlings planted around the Accra region.
The 
