Paint the Change

Paint the Change Celebrating local heroes around London and the world. We use street art and videos for social justice and give young people a new medium to express themselves.

Contact: [email protected] Street art for social justice around the world

Survival and triumph through art and creativity! How ’s art helped her cope with cancer. From today, we are going to pu...
10/09/2025

Survival and triumph through art and creativity! How ’s art helped her cope with cancer.

From today, we are going to publish stories of brave women and men who have overcome challenges and tragedies through art and creativity.

When was told she had triple negative breast cancer, her world spun out of control. It’s one of the toughest cancers to treat, and the words “terminal” felt like a brick landing on her chest.

But Helen found something unexpected to hold onto: painting. Not polite little watercolours either — she went big, bold, abstract. She’d grab a brush and just let it all out: the fear, the sadness, the stubborn “I’m still here” energy. Her canvases became like a diary, except instead of words there were slashes of red, floods of yellow, deep storms of black.

Painting gave her back a sense of control when her body felt like it wasn’t hers anymore. It wasn’t about perfection, it was about honesty. Every canvas was proof she was still living, still creating.

And here’s the amazing bit — her work started to get noticed. Exhibitions, collectors, even international shows. Helen turned tragedy into a voice that people couldn’t ignore.

Her art says what a thousand medical charts never could: that even when life hits you with the hardest news, you can still create beauty, joy, and meaning.

Lucy Jones has turned struggle into strength with a paintbrush. Born with cerebral palsy and later diagnosed with dyslex...
10/09/2025

Lucy Jones has turned struggle into strength with a paintbrush. Born with cerebral palsy and later diagnosed with dyslexia, Lucy has refused to let either stop her from making art. “I paint on the floor – it’s less far to fall,” she says, crawling across huge canvases to create bold self-portraits and colourful landscapes that are as honest as they are fearless.
Her work talks about beauty, vulnerability, and what it means to live differently. “I want to show how it feels to be inside this body,” she explains. For Lucy, painting is about truth: “I’m not interested in making things pretty – I’m interested in making them real.” Every stroke is proof that creativity can push back against limits.
As she puts it, “Art gives me the space where disability isn’t a weakness, but part of the story.”

We are excited to announce that our short documentary film “ Dreaming of a Greener Future: One wall at a time” has been ...
01/09/2025

We are excited to announce that our short documentary film “ Dreaming of a Greener Future: One wall at a time” has been selected to be screened at the Atlanta Children Film Festival. This film chronicles the transformative journey of 120 young people across Europe who harnessed the power of public art to confront environmental challenges.From vibrant murals in Slovenia, France, and Serbia to workshops that deepened understanding and inspired action, this 15-minute documentary captures the creativity, collaboration, and urgency fueling the Youth Art for the Earth project.
We are extremely thank full to all our partners across Serbia, Slovenia and France as well as Creative Europe for funding this project.

Young people attending ’s workshop for . They made three short films about Brick Lane using Sony Cinema Line cameras FX3...
13/08/2025

Young people attending ’s workshop for . They made three short films about Brick Lane using Sony Cinema Line cameras FX3 and FX6. They learned about directing, camera operation, sound recording, interviewing and, most importantly, storytelling.

Watch this space for their brilliant films 🍿 🎬

Based in the Tiébélé village of Burkina Faso in West Africa, the Kassena community is famous for their painted houses tr...
22/07/2025

Based in the Tiébélé village of Burkina Faso in West Africa, the Kassena community is famous for their painted houses tradition. By decorating their houses with culturally-rich symbols, stories, a sense of protection and generations of heritage are kept alive and passed on. And since Tiébélé was recently named one of Burkina Faso’s four UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Kassena hope to use this distinction to raise public cultural awareness, strengthen preservation efforts, and benefit their community through projects and economic activities centered around their heritage.

We recently chatted with featured artist Alexandre Keto , who is beginning collaborative work with Kassena locals to revitalize their tradition of painting houses. Keto’s work is a fantastic example of community co-creation. Public art can be used to bring public attention to so many issues and with Tiébélé’s ancestral cultural heritage at risk for many reasons, the collaboration between Keto and the Kassena community hopes to reinvigorate this practice for future generations.

Full story:
https://www.paintthechange.me/articleskaseenacommunity

📚✊ Nasim was a student in the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education – the “underground university” that Baha’is created ...
14/07/2025

📚✊ Nasim was a student in the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education – the “underground university” that Baha’is created in Iran, because they’re banned from higher education – when, in 2009, erupted into days of protests over the rigged reelection of then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Nasim was out taking photos when she was arrested and briefly detained by the authorities. She was held for a few days and government agents tried to force her to falsely confess that she and other Baha’is were responsible for the protests – she refused. Nasim was released but she decided to leave Iran. Today she is completing her art studies at UC San Diego.

Australian artist painted this portrait of her on the side of the Storefront Academy at Park Avenue and 129th Street in Harlem.

Carolina-born street artist has a signature creature – he calls her Daisy. Patch created a special Reading Daisy – at 1...
30/06/2025

Carolina-born street artist has a signature creature – he calls her Daisy. Patch created a special Reading Daisy – at 120th Street and 3rd Avenue – for our Crime campaign in 2016.

Daisy is reading a forbidden book of knowledge – notice the lock, which she was able to unlock thanks to finding the key – and so she’s a perfect icon for striving to gain an education despite whatever obstacles or injustices.

“Me and the monsters, we’re on a mission to kind of stomp around this world, and I guess just be kind to everybody,” said artist

📍 2198 3rd Ave, East Harlem, New York 🇺🇸

🎨 ATHENA FARGHADANI (2020)For our campaign (to fight the injustice of thousands of young people from the community b...
23/06/2025

🎨 ATHENA FARGHADANI (2020)

For our campaign (to fight the injustice of thousands of young people from the community being barred from higher education), the artists used their signature black and white stencils to depict the imprisoned Iranian cartoonist Atena Farghadani with a backdrop of protesters, to show their support for freedom of expression in Iran.

The sibling duo artists are originally from Tabriz, . They are famous in the Iranian urban art culture for their artistic accomplishments. They now live and work in Brooklyn, NY and continue to dismantle pre-conceived notions of Iranian tradition through their street art. Their work encompasses themes of human rights, justice, social and political causes.

(Brooklyn, NY)

BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD 🎨Young people from .of.growth took part in a art workshop where they discuss...
16/06/2025

BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD 🎨

Young people from .of.growth took part in a art workshop where they discussed what peace meant to them, specifically in their local area and within their communities.

used the discussions and artworks from the workshop to design a community mural for St Andrew’s Wharf Youth Hub in Isle of Dogs, where the young participants joined him to paint the wall.

A mural launch event was held on the 1st of June 2023 where led a community discussion with Streets of Growth mentors and young people, local police and councillors. The debate covered topics including the mural’s slogan “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

WOMAN WITH MULTI-COLOURED HAIR 🎨Artist wanted to paint a woman looking across to a bright orb — her education. And he w...
09/06/2025

WOMAN WITH MULTI-COLOURED HAIR 🎨

Artist wanted to paint a woman looking across to a bright orb — her education. And he wanted it to be colourful; to give a blank, monochrome wall a searing streak of colours, vibrant and bright and all flowing from the woman’s hair. Look also at her ear — there’s a pencil tucked behind and it’s just a bit broken to evoke the dangers of being denied an education.

The mural was part of ’s Harlem collection of more than 20 murals for education equality for the Bahais in Iran.

(PS92 at 222 W 134th St)

📚 THE CARING & THE NEEDINGMarthalicia Matarrita’s delicate portrait of a young girl with the seeds of education and kno...
01/05/2025

📚 THE CARING & THE NEEDING

Marthalicia Matarrita’s delicate portrait of a young girl with the seeds of education and knowledge being planted in her mind was created for Education Is Not A Crime in Harlem.

(PS92 at 222 W 134th St)

Thousands of young people in Iran from the Baha’i religious minority are barred from higher education because of their beliefs. Paint the Change fights this injustice through creativity and art.

Our campaign worked with leading street artists to produce 40 murals worldwide, as well as digital media and community workshops, linking different communities of struggle together to uphold the universal right to education.

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