

The Art of Beauty Experience will be a multi-part initiative beginning with the girls at GEMS in New York City. Carine Jocelyn, the Executive Director of Diaspora Community Services (www.diasporacs.org) and Martine Longchamp, the Executive Director of Diakonos International will join Ms. Watkins and Ms. Edut in a facilitated discussion around inner & outer beauty, the challenges and risks that young girls face in Haiti, and explore how GEMS services might be transferrable to at-risk girls in Port-au-Prince.
Following the discussion will be a non-traditional makeup celebration with sponsored Make-Up Forever and Lash Royalty products, an art workshop for the girls to freely paint their experience around exploring and owning their beauty with watercolors, and a photo and video shoot to showcase the makeup and art while respecting the girls’ privacy and confidentiality.

The Art of Beauty Experience
How it was born: Beauty activists, Ford supermodel & Founder of Art In Motion Monica Watkins and “Makeup Stylist to the Stars” Leora Edut, discovered that when women experience their own beauty from the inside out, other areas of their life transform. They soon realized that fashion and beauty can serve as a catalyst to empower young, at-risk women in the areas of self-esteem, creativity, diversity, and access to financial freedom.
The Art of Beauty Experience is a bi-national initiative for young, disadvantaged women living a world apart to celebrate and embrace their common inner-beauty. The children of the Diakonos Orphanage (www.diakonosintl.org) in Carrefour, Haiti are starving for the educational and artistic opportunities that we take for granted in the U.S. The sexually-exploited and trafficked girls and young women of GEMS (www.gems-girls.org) are yearning to show their worth, transform public perception, and empower other young girls in need. By linking the two organizations, and inspiring a myriad of supporters across all disciplines, the possibilities for personal growth and future success for the children are limitless.