By Megan Jicha

Noticing a need, then filling it. A simple concept, yet one that few people follow through with. It’s a concept that led three students to help start an art-based project for young boys in a shelter in Grahamstown, South Africa.

These three students, Madison MacLean, Shane Lloyd and Erin Smyth, found the need of instilling “a sense of pride and ownership in the boys [at the shelter], so that they will have incentive to stay in the shelter instead of living on the streets,” said MacLean, a middler international affairs and political science major.

To address the issue, they, along with three students from Rhodes University, a university in South Africa, created The Isipho Project for the Eloxulweni Shelter in Grahamstown.

“The Isipho Project focuses on providing the children at the Eloxulweni Shelter an opportunity to creatively improve the condition of their shelter,” said Lloyd, a senior behavioral neuroscience major.

The project consists of having the boys in the shelter use donated supplies from local businesses to create art. The boys then sell their work at local caf