New York, NY – October 22nd, 2012 – ART4AID will hold a photography exhibition entitled: OLOSHO LE-MAASAI - at the National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, New York, Thursday November 29th, 2012 from 6:00pm to 9:00pm. The exhibition will focus on the Maasai community in Kenya, and on the importance of education in remote communities around the world. It has the endorsement of the Kenya Mission to the United Nations and the Italian Mission to the United Nations, as well as the Urban League, AMREF Foundation, The Kenya Tourism Board, Turkish Airlines and Zonin Prosecco USA.

Both the Ambassador to the Kenya Mission to the United Nations, and a representative from the ART4AID organization and AMREF will speak on the subject. Members of a Maasai community are expected to attend the exhibit. Proceeds from photographs sold at the exhibition will directly aid a Maasai community in Kenya. Carlo Zande, founder of ART4AID, stated that “by purchasing photographs, a humanitarian value is added to the art piece as the proceeds will go back to help the communities where the original artwork was created. Art then gains a greater purpose.”

ART4AID is a non profit organization, whose mission is to redefine the relationship between artistic expression and philanthropy. It is dedicated toward EMPOWERING children through digital art to reach beyond their current life circumstances and realize their potential. ART4AID promotes education in remote communities around the world by providing school supplies and other resources to communicate with children across borders. ART4AID also ENCOURAGES social awareness through digital arts workshops directed at developing artistic and social skills. According to Zande, “A great example is our ART4AID Digital Pen Pal Program. It promotes communication between children around the world, through a series of artistic exchanges conducted between nations. Through a network of schools around the world, children are paired to exchange informative artwork on their own country and culture. With these exchanges, we make children aware of the world in which they live in, by providing the opportunity and tools required to communicate directly and creatively.”

This year, ART4AID touched the lives of a remote Maasai community in Entasekera, Loita, in southern Kenya, visiting 10 local schools and distributing over 6,000 pens and pencils, 1,000 notebooks, 500 soccer balls and hundreds of solar-powered flashlights. ART4AID also provided full scholarships to the neediest students.

Maasai community leader, Jonas Ole Putwei, had this to say about the impact ART4AID had on their lives: “Your support toward education brought a big change ... the schools which had classrooms that had no blackboards are now enjoying the new ones that you donated instead of using scrap metal to teach. The encyclopedias, novels and the storybooks have really helped the children ... Generally, the welfare of children of Loita, improved the most by the work of ART4AID, especially the most disadvantaged in our society.“