Columbus freshman creates mural to promote safety
The “See Something Say Something” mural is being completed now and will be displayed for students and parents to see.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — It’s the beauty of art when you think about it.
Not the picture, necessarily, but the meaning, interpretation and different points of view. It’s what we take away.
“Art is something that I like and with what I like I just wanted to create something helpful to the other students,” Hosaena Araia said.
Araia, a 14-year-old freshman at Mifflin High School, is leaving her mark.
“It’s just, in general, a concern for all of the tragedies that have occurred in the buildings and the dangers that some of us feel and certain scenarios that pop up,” Melissa Charles said.
Charles, an English teacher at Mifflin, is talking about tragedies in schools. From Columbine to Sandy Hook and Parkland to the streets of Columbus.
In 2021, 13- to 21-year-olds made up 42 deaths out of Columbus’s 203 homicides. Charles knows the wonder of words and the comfort of camaraderie.
“It is harder than it seems, but it can be done and it takes just paying attention,” Charles said.
Four years ago Columbus City Schools started a program called “Safer Together” following the school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
Monday, different high schools in CCS promoted positive messages through raised voices all to end gun violence from stage productions to walkouts, banners, pledges and table talks.
At Mifflin, Araia put pencil to paper.
“It just shows like to have just power and just speak up,” she said. “That’s exactly what it’s saying and when I drew it, I just thought that’s what it is.”
See Something. Say Something.
It’s a slogan in her mind that turned to a powerful picture. A picture that is now being painted into an eight-by-nine foot mural that is prominently displayed in the halls of Mifflin.
A beacon of hope that will shine long after Araia graduates.
“When [students] see that, like every day, I just want to make sure that they know they could just talk to anyone what they see,” she said. “They don’t have to feel afraid or anything.”
It’s the beauty of art. Not the picture, but how it makes us feel. And that isn’t open to interpretation.
According to the school’s art teacher, Joseph Castano, the idea was proposed to students to create a wall mural and about 20 submissions came in during a one-week period.
The “See Something Say Something” mural is being completed now and will be displayed for students and parents to see.
Read More: Columbus freshman creates mural to promote safety