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Jack Black lends a helping hand to Lombok school
Jack Black likes a T-shirt with a story. In a recent Instagram post, the Hollywood actor and singer posed in a funky T-shirt that had been codesigned by Gia, a 12-year-old from Senggigi, Lombok, in West Nusa Tenggara.
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Jack Black (Courtesy of Instagram/Jack Black)
Jack Black likes a T-shirt with a story.
In a recent Instagram post, the Hollywood actor and singer posed in a funky T-shirt that had been codesigned by Gia, a 12-year-old from Senggigi, Lombok, in West Nusa Tenggara.
This is the work of Face This, a charity that has been working for over 10 years to connect students in Senggigi with designers in the Netherlands and around the world to raise funds for their school, which was badly damaged in the earthquakes of 2018.
“Let’s help build Gia her school of rock!” tweeted Jack Black. The post generated more than 180,000 likes.
In August 2018, a devastating earthquake killed hundreds of people and destroyed thousands of houses and buildings in Lombok, including SD 1 Senggigi state elementary school, which is still being renovated.
“That’s why many of the school’s 254 pupils are still attending lessons in tents outside of the school building,” said Jos van der Hoek from Face This. “It’s all about giving the kids a chance to help rebuild their school and deal with their trauma.”
Last year, a group of nine students from a school in Lombok, including Gia, took action by doing what they love to do: drawing.
Although much of Senggigi — including SD 1 — is still heavily damaged, the kids created drawings about the places in their hometown they loved the most.
While drawing, they were able to escape reality for a moment. But those drawings might end up in changing that reality forever as the children raise funds to renovate their school.
Nine street artists from different parts of the world volunteered to help transform the drawings into exclusive T-shirt designs.
Gia’s T-shirt is part of this collection. She designed her T-shirt together with Australian artist Jamie Browne. And with Jack Black now promoting the T-shirt, the campaign comes full circle.
“When we founded our charity T-shirt line back in 2008, we were really inspired by Jack Black’s movie School of Rock," Jos said. “In this movie, Jack’s character puts kids’ creativity front and center so they can achieve their goals. That’s exactly what we are doing too.”
