February 7, 2020
You have likely seen some buzz about TFFT’s Share the Love campaign, so we wanted to share a bit more information and dedicate today’s blog to the youth that are serving as agents of change in the lives of orphan and vulnerable children in Tanzania. Share the Love, TFFT’s annual youth led campaign, embodies the power of collective impact and is a terrific way to engage and energize TFFT’s youngest supporters to take action as ambassadors for TFFT.
This year, TFFT is exploring the way in which you, our agents of change, power the potential of the TFFT scholars, teachers, and TFFT community as a whole. By advocating on behalf of vulnerable and orphan children, youth have the power to make a transformative difference. History has seen countless examples of many great leaders enacting change at a young age. TFFT believes in the power, promise, and potential of youth. However, not all children, including TFFT scholars, have access to the resources, opportunities, or support networks that nurture true potential and allow them to dream big. By supporting access to quality education, our Share the Love leaders help prepare TFFT scholars to explore their potential, pursue their aspirations, and develop the confidence to go after their wildest dreams. Because youth have the potential to catalyze change, we are excited to see youth in the United States using their interests and compassion to equip Tanzanian youth with the opportunity and agency to shape their futures.
This year we have nine wonderful students participating in Share the Love. If you have not yet met the team, visit our Share the Love page here to either support or learn more about Ava Claire, Cate, Caitlyn, Mary Holland, the Myers Park High School TFFT Club, Nora, Pray, Richard, and Virginia! We are extremely grateful for their commitment to impact.
This year, TFFT’s Share the Love campaign has a new and exciting creative component: TFFTees, a T-shirt design competition! Share the Love leaders are using their imagination to capture people’s attention with a T-shirt design that fuels TFFT’s work. The winning T-shirt design will be produced and sold as TFFT’s 2020 T-Shirt, to be highlighted on our website and worn by both staff and supporters to raise funds and awareness about our work! This T-shirt will help us advocate and provide quality education for orphan and vulnerable children. The aim of this competition is to encourage our participants to get to know TFFT’s work and determine the best way to showcase and represent our work on a T-shirt.
We have narrowed down our entries, and have four entries to present.
North’s T-shirt design:
North is 11 years old and in elementary school in the Philippines. He spent a lot of time in Tanzania getting to know TFFT because both of his parents, Melissa and Ken, have worked for TFFT in different capacities. His beautiful hand-drawn design is inspired by the TFFT logo and creatively incorporates elements of TFFT’s Whole Child programming!
Lillian’s T-shirt design:
Lillian designed her T-shirt a few years ago but entered it into this year’s contest because it’s messaging is relevant to TFFT’s work. She explains, “I believe reading gives you the key to imagination, and imagination is the key to education. My brand is called Happie People. “Happie” standing for; Helping All People Pursue Imagination in Education. Exactly the connection I had felt with the books! Each shirt is hand designed and created by me! I designed the logo and hand carved it from something called linoleum. This is a printing technique called ‘block printing’. Essentially, I created a large stamp, with the logo in reverse, and pressed it onto each shirt. I also built a shirt press that would allow me to hand press these designs. It was important to me to hand-make these shirts rather than have them created at a printers. This way TFFT’s message is being passed through me to the community! I sell these shirts throughout my community at school and extracurricular and am starting on the creative platform Etsy.”
Cate Dupuy’s T-shirt design:
Cate is the president of the MPHS TFFT Club and is a wonderful advocate for TFFT. Her T-shirt design utilizes the TFFT logo and TFFT’s slogan, “Empowering Through Education”.
Myers Park High School T-shirt design:
The MPHS TFFT club’s T-shirt design utilizes the TFFT logo and TFFT’s slogan, “Empowering Through Education”.
We urge our TFFT community to pay close attention to our Instagram and Facebook accounts over the next few days for updates on the competition, and to be sure to participate in the public voting element of this contest. We will announce the winning T-shirt design on February 14th!