Jason Dehni: Artbound

In Support of Free the Children

Jason Dehni is Co-Chair and co-Founder of Artbound, a group of young professionals who are out to harness the power of the arts to create a sustainable social and economic change in the lives of underprivileged children. We’ve been following the progress of Artbound since it was launched in 2010, and spoke with Jason recently after he and Artbound returned from their first, and successful, working trip to build an art school with Free the Children in Kenya.

Born and raised in war-torn Beirut, Lebanon, he migrated to the USA when he was 11, and arrived in Toronto at 18. “I have always felt so privileged in having an amazing family, that I wanted to be a contributing member of society. I also feel I have a duty to give back, especially to the children of any country.”

Jason worked with Habitat for Humanity to help build a home for a family in need. Realizing that the family for which he helped to build a home had less than nothing but were nonetheless full of happiness and contentment, this highlighted for Jason the difference between the things that he needed and the things that he wanted. From there his need to give back took hold.

“Arts and culture play a critical role in defining who we are as a people,” said Jason. “And when kids become engaged in the arts, it has a huge impact on them both personally and socially. In developing countries, the arts – whether performing arts, fine arts, or arts and crafts – can generate income for families, and empowers young people.”

Artbound was formed as a not-for-profit organization to work in partnership with Free the Children. “The whole premise is that the arts have the ability to transform lives. As well as raising money to benefit the students, the Artbound Committee wants to be engaged and to be part of the solution. We are a group of people who have been successful in our careers and have been engaged in philanthropy already. Engagement means so much.”

After founding Artbound with Amanda Alvaro, Katie Telford and Marcello Cabezas, the sequence of events to date has been forming the Artbound Committee, having Seamus O’Regan join as Honorary Chair and Dayle Haddon as Global Ambassador (both of whom have been featured in Tempo Toronto previously), creating an operating plan, holding a highly successful fundraiser in Toronto last Fall, which raised over $150,000 – enough to fund the building of a high school in Kenya and a full arts school – and organizing a trip as a personal cost to the Masai Mara region which resulted in the creation of an art school there, as planned.

“The entire team came to the conclusion that we were not simply part of a charity, we were part of the development of a sustainable community.” Highlights of the Kenya Artbound trip included more than working on building the school:-

There was an inspirational cultural exchange in which the girls for whom the art school was created performed along with Canadian notables, including Nelly Furtado – a living demonstration of how the arts can overcome barriers to communication.

Almost everyone who helped raise the $150,000 last year was able to be hands-on participants in Kenya. Most of the money went to having a high school and art school, built together working shoulder to shoulder with local people. There was also enough to operate the school, including paying the teachers’ salaries, for at least two years.

Artbound’s global ambassador, Dayle Haddon, started a dynamic ball rolling in Kenya by donating $2500 for tuition and room and board, which meant sponsoring two girls. A further $90,000 was pledged within 10 minutes by Artbound members, and a week later a further $100,000 came in from Ms Haddon’s connections in New York. $400,000 would support each of 41 girls through the high school and art school for four years, and is a reachable objective.

“There is nothing like going there and meeting the students,” said Jason. “The passion you bring back you can never experience by writing a cheque. Given the opportunity to be part of the execution, seeing where the money goes… it changes you.”

“Our new ‘tagline’ is ART DOES GOOD.”

Next stop for Artbound is India, specifically the Province of Rajastan. “Every country is different,” Jason reminded me. “We will have another fundraiser in the Fall. We are extending our mandate to include artists and anyone who loves the arts. We’d like to raise enough to build a full school, with complete arts program attached to it.”

In closing, Jason said, “Clearly, we could not have done this without support from generous donors. Some of our biggest supporters were Scotiabank, Horizons ETF, CTV, Globalive, Davis & Henderson and ETFO.”

(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

 Loading ...