Student Voices Leaders are encouraged to share how they’re shaping their communities. Many students are artists of different mediums themselves, and all students are trained to further advocate for the arts and centering youth in their work. Student Voices Leader, Hannah Cho, shares how arts education has been a vehicle for narrative change and the inspiration behind Meraki, her new organization focused on mental health and healing through visual arts.
What brought you to Create CA and how has your work with Student Voices shaped or influenced your organization?
Since I was younger, I have always loved using art as a form of creative expression and giving back to the community. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I recognized low student involvement and a lack of appreciation toward healthcare workers in our district and local hospitals. So, I combined art with leadership to organize a school-wide origami butterfly campaign where students wrote messages of gratitude on their butterflies that were given to healthcare providers. My newfound understanding of using art as a tool for uplifting my community and creating change drew me to Create CA and the Student Voices Leaders Program. Within Create CA, I have had opportunities to share my story, connect with many incredible and talented people, and inspire others to take part in the arts movement. Create CA showed me the impact of art and how it can convey people’s unique stories, which inspired me to create Meraki, an organization committed to using art to empower others and understand the pivotal role of art in activism. Meraki is of Greek origin and is pronounced meh-ruh-kai. It means “essense of ourselves” and to do something with soul, creativity, and love. This organization provides a wide range of free and easily accessible coloring pages that people can pick and choose from to put together their own personalized collection of pages (a.k.a an authentic journal).
Can you tell me about the work your organization does and the program or programs you run? What differentiates you from other organizations?
Oftentimes, hard-copy coloring books are expensive, and online coloring pages may be fun but lack value and cohesion. Meraki’s coloring pages are free and easily accessible on the website and will incorporate valuable themes of activism, self-reflection, and self-confidence. The pages are organized in chapters centering around different themes, including affirmations, mental health, and activism. This can be an asset in teaching people the importance of being engaged members of their community and how to utilize different tools to stand up for causes. Through Meraki, I want to combat the stigma around art and coloring and spread awareness that this activity can benefit anyone. Allowing users to pick and choose which pages they want to complete gives them authority and liberty when crafting their journals and understanding themselves. In addition, I hope to give shoutouts and feature pages to foster a supportive community and network of artists with an appreciation for art and activism.
What are your goals for the next one, three, and five years? What results does your organization hope to achieve?
My long-term goals for Meraki are to be open to requests and feedback, create a team, reach out to local schools, design new chapters centering around different themes, and build a community. I want to make sure that Meraki reflects what people care about, so my website makes reaching out to me with ideas and requests for future themes as easy as possible. By doing this, I hope to diversify Meraki’s content, expand its availability and reach, cover more prevalent topics in our world, and give users a platform to connect and hype each other up. But most importantly, I hope this organization puts a smile on someone’s face.
Follow Hannah’s work:
Website: Meraki
Email: meraki.national@gmail.com
Instagram: @meraki.national
Create CA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.