The children in the Kunst and Kijk pilot are poor. They live in small flats in high rise buildings - concrete jungles. There children are mostly Muslim whose parents have immigrated from Morocco or Turkey. 

One of the girls that has come to every Kunst and Kijk, Hasma, has also shown a tremendous change in her demeanor. When I first met her, every picture I took of her, she would flip up her middle finger - without fail. She was disruptive and would often lead others in bad behavior. 
Now she is the girl who helps set up and clean up. She helps others when they need it. Now, when I take her picture, she smiles. 

Our next pilot initiatives will begin on February11 at Cabrillo Village for at risk youth. On February 12 we return to TheLighthouse in Oxnard where we continue to work with women in recovery. AllJanuary we have been preparing for each of our initiatives, both in Amsterdamand California. Early in the month Lynne Farrow trained Shawna Snow and ourVentura County art process mentors in process art making. We filmed thistraining for training future global Reckoning leaders.

 The round of initiatives begins with severaladvantages:

Reckoning launched its first initiative in Amsterdam on 13 January called Kunst and Kijk (Art and See). We have about 25 students and 4 volunteers from YWAM as well as some good friends who are documenting our pilot and producing a DVD.

Last week, I helped teach an art class at a school in the Bos en Lommer. The kids were ten years old and apparently they were considered the worst class in the school. The teacher had quit and they had hired a special unit to come in, gain control back of the class for a few months, and then return the class to a regular teacher. This was our setting for a class in drawing faces.

SKC is another foundation in Amsterdam and has asked Shawna to train the staff of mentors of one of the schools in the Bos en Lommer that are working with around 40 children ages 10-12 who are having the most difficulty in school. They meet with the mentors once a week for 2 hours. Mounir, the director, told me that be doesn’t want to continue with the current training as it is not effective in getting at the key issues which he says is bullying. This is a huge problem he says, and more schools will not acknowledge this or do anything about this.

Kunst and Kijk is our project we are launching in January. In preparation of that, Shawna is training local leaders currently running an after school program of about 30 children in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. Most of the children are from immigrant families from Morocco, Turkey, Ghana, Egypt and the Middle East. Most of them are Muslims and the mothers stay often and observe the class.

After my 3rd week of Reckoning at the Lighthouse in OX, I do have one story from there. I'll call this oldest woman in the group - estimate at least 60 - Ann. The first week Ann came with her head down, defeated and sad, and she was uncommunicative and seemingly unresponsive. She did minimal work on the cracked pot. I wondered if she would be able to learn because  addiction, as you know, tampers with the brain. The second week, she drew a beautiful pot with green leaves. The women all commented on her beautiful art.