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Pakistan: Architect Teaches Kids Life Lessons Through Art

Sarah Adeel, founder of Lettucebee Kids, demonstrates how to draw a cityscape to low-income and working children who attend her weekly art therapy sessions in an Islamabad park. Image by Beenish Ahmed, 2013. Pakistan, 2013.

The Lettucebee Kids work on their drawings in small groups. Image by Beenish Ahmed, 2013. Pakistan, 2013.

The girls in the group are given new uniforms to wear for an exhibition of their artwork in one of Islamabad's finest hotels. Image by Beenish Ahmed, 2013. Pakistan, 2013.

A volunteer with Lettucebee Kids helps one of the children comb his hair after he has changed into a new uniform to wear to the art exhibition which opened on World Street Children Day. Image by Beenish Ahmed, 2013. Pakistan, 2013.

The Lettucebee Kids race up the stairs of the Serena Hotel in Islamabad to see their artwork on display. Image by Beenish Ahmed, 2013. Pakistan, 2013.

Mohammad Ali, 12, poses by the artwork he and other Lettucebee Kids created. Ali has been attending the organization's Saturday art and music therapy sessions for three years and finds them to be a welcome break from selling snacks in a market the rest of the week. Image by Beenish Ahmed, 2013. Pakistan, 2013.

As an architect, Sarah Adeel knows that space matters. And the spaces in which she saw so many low-income young people living seemed to shut them out from the world – and from their own childhoods.

With a few crayons and a ream of paper, she moved them to a new place – one where they were in control.

She founded the self-sustaining organization Lettucebee Kids to foster a safe space for street children to learn and grow.

Adeel and a few volunteers meet with a group of about a dozen kids for art therapy every week to create drawings which the children can sell so they do not have to beg. An exhibition of their artwork opened at one of Islamabad's finest hotels on World Street Children Day.

While Adeel realizes that drawing and music aren't a replacement for formal education, she says the art the children create and sell gives LettuceBee Kids participants something they were lacking: a sense of pride in their work and in themselves.