I am writing to personally invite you to become a partner in a public action campaign without precedent on the Internet.

The challenge is simple, and it is addressed to everyone, young and old: To create more than 1001 drawings, honouring people living with intellectual disabilities, before the celebration of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, December 3, 2008! To mark this special day, a slide show featuring all of the drawings received will be shown in a variety of places around the world. All of the drawings will also be disseminated widely across the Internet.

Through this project, we will create a chain of images of humanity, without and beyond borders, in an effort to sensitize the general public to the needs of people made vulnerable by intellectual disabilities, while at the same time celebrating their presence among us.

This is an action – a gesture – that allows everyone to actively contribute to changing the way the general public sees intellectual disabilities. (See the details below.)

This type of borderless project attracts attention, from the local level to the international level, and every community that participates will no doubt benefit from the increased visibility it brings.

Your participation is essential to the success of this project. We believe it is critical that the real experiences of people with intellectual disabilities, on different continents and in different regions and countries, are reflected in the drawings.

How can we participate?
Anyone and everyone is welcome to participate. Through this invitation, we hope to reach a maximum number of people on every continent.

Spread the word!
Invite your family and friends to participate! Ask each one of them to send in a drawing!

Get involved! Take up the challenge!
Become a supporter of 1001 Drawings by committing to submit a certain number of drawings—invite others to take up the challenge too!

Enlist your community and become a partner in 1001 Drawings!
See how to become a partner

Send Photographs
These photographs will be used to create model drawings that people can trace.

Take action!
Organize a ‘’1001 Drawings Night’’ or a daylong ‘’Draw-a-thon’’ – and don’t forget to pick up a pencil yourself!

Send us your drawings, and publish them on your web site, on your personal web page, and in your e-mail as well!

Take part in the International Day of Persons with Disabilities!
Organize a celebration and a presentation of the slide show in your region.

Find all of the details on the Voices and colours web site:
http://voicesandcolours.org/1001drawings/disabilities

Also see the 1001 Drawings blog in the Meeting Ground Blogs section: http://larchecommons.ca/en/blogs/1001_drawings

Please don't hesitate to get in touch with me directly about this project. Write to me at the following address:
1001drawings@larche.ca

Thank you, 1001 times. I look forward to hearing from you!

Jean-Emmanuel

Why are drawings the focus of this sensitivity and solidarity action?

We wanted to suggest a universal gesture, and creating images of people is just such an act. We believe it can also be an act of great tenderness, and one that can be accessible to everyone, from young children to the most aged, regardless of culture or IQ!

To take the time to draw someone, whoever he or she is in this world, requires that we stop, look at the person in a new way, rediscover the individual, and acknowledge and affirm that he or she is important in our eyes!

No experience or drawing skills are necessary to create drawings for this project!
It is simply a matter of copying, tracing, and colouring images of people living with intellectual disabilities, as they are, not according to any preconceived ideas or ideals. Once complete, we ask you to send your drawings to us so they can be published on the Internet.

To make the process simpler, links to galleries of photographs, as well as actual model drawings, are being made available on the 1001 Drawings web site.

The unique aspect of this action lies in the fact that each drawing will bear witness to an aspect of the real experiences of one or more people living with intellectual disabilities and those of the people who surround them, in many different parts of the world.