Kids in fracking sacrifice zones depict trauma in crayon drawings.
by TXSHARON on AUGUST 6, 2013
in NDA, RANGE RESOURCES
“Drawing is a natural mode of communication that children rarely resist and that offers a way to express feelings and thoughts in a manner that is less threatening than strictly verbal means. For the child who has experienced trauma or loss, it helps to externalize emotions and events too painful to speak out loud and is one of the only means of conveying the complexities of painful experiences, repressed memories, or unspoken fears, anxieties, or guilt.” Using Drawing as Intervention with Traumatized Children.
Aly Hallowich expressed her trauma in a drawing done before she was gagged by Range Resources.
I’m guessing this drawing was made when Aly was 5 or 6 because according to the court transcript, she was 7 when she was gagged.
MRS. HALLOWICH: We have agreed to this because we needed to get the children out of there for their health and safety. My concern is they’re minors. I’m not quite sure I fully understand. We know we’re signing for silence forever, buthow is this taking away our children’s rights being minors now? I mean, my daughter is turning 7 today, my son is 10. How – I guess that concerns me that we need to keep them safe, but –
The tallest object looks like a flare. You can see the green tanks that depict gas wells, the drilling rig and the impoundment pond with black in it. The sun and sky are sad. Aly’s drawing was previously posted HERE.
Reilly Ruggiero created this fantastic Google Doodle. Check out the “L.” Half of Reilly’s world looks pretty wonderful but the other half is filled with diesel, drilling waste and scorched earth. I think Reilly was about 9 when she drew this. I posted it on my blog HERE before her parents started replying, “That matter has been resolved,” when asked about their issues with Aruba Petroleum.
During her first “free time” of the second grade, Emma Parr drew a picture of what was happening around her home. She says, “This is the oil rig next to our house. It is messing up our air.” And she tells the workers to clean up their mess.
Fracking is tearing apart families, dividing communities and traumatizing our children.
Villari’s firm “never encouraged the family to agree to it,” he told Yahoo! Shine. “I pushed them quite hard on the issue, said it was unusual, and that we did not believe it was constitutional.” But he said he understood the family’s decision, as the settlement was a “take it or leave it” offer, with the gag order attached. “They had to make a difficult decision at that point in time,” he explained, adding that the Hallowiches were under financial strain and needed the settlement money in order to move. “They made what they felt was the best decision for their family.”
Special thanks to Richard Charter.