MENTORS are an important part of the Rekindle project and the education of the students involved.
The mentors are professionals who have been working closely with the students behind the scenes of Rekindle, the Little Yarra Steiner School bushfire recovery project.
Warburton resident and artist Sioux Dolman went with students on the initial reKINDle excursion to fire affected areas around St Andrews and Marysville.
On this excursion she worked with some students to make a spiral sculpture that features in the show. She is also working on finishing a tree sculpture before the tour starts.
Ms Dolman said she has been an artist all her life. “I was born to spread creativity, love and beauty,” she said.
Ms Dolman said that when she returned home after evacuating from the bushfires in February 2009, she felt guilty. “We still had perfection, while everyone else had devastation. As soon as humanity finds its heart, nothing like the bushfires will happen any more,” she said.
Don Valley resident James Ashton has been mentoring in photography and filming.
He has done a lot of work on the reKINDle website and will be filming the video for Picking up the Pieces, a song composed by three girls from year seven and eight.
He said his bushfire experience was from a distance.
“At the time of the fires I was in Adelaide, but I heard that my property was under threat. Then a water bomber flew over into the national park next to where I was staying, and I thought the whole of Australia was alight,” he said.
The other mentors are Dinesh Trimmer, sound and lighting, Mara Pattison-Sowden, journalist, and Nicole Fox, catering and also the project’s co-ordinator.
Rekindle will be touring fire-affected areas in rural Victoria this week, and some of the mentors will be with the tour to conduct workshops with rural students.
