"I am painting Gemma remotely because I cannot do otherwise. I would love to go and meet her in Arusha. If I could, I would go right now," says Anna Minardo as she works on the painting.
Ms Minardo - a finalist in the Darling Portrait Prize held at the National Portrait Gallery earlier this year - decided to paint Ms Sisia because she was inspired by her work in Tanzania, creating a free, private school for 1,800 of the poorest children in a country where 97 percent of the population does not access tertiary education.
“I was inspired by Gemma as a person and by this school which is like an oasis in the middle of absolute poverty in Tanzania,” Ms Minardo told SBS Italian.
To be accepted at St Jude's, children have to apply for a scholarship, need to be very bright and should come from very poor families.
“I think that this school could set an example for the rest of the world. It even offers accommodation to 1,400 children and no one pays for anything," says Ms Minardo.
"Many Australians have been sponsoring students at St Jude, so I wanted to paint the whole picture in a portrait — a very large portrait.”
The painting is 1.7 by 1.2 metre oil on linen.
Anna Minardo paints Gemma Sisia with three students. Source: Supplied/ Anna Minardo
“I have been working on different parts of the painting to deeply understand and accurately represent Gemma’s relationship with nature, with the school and with her students,” says Ms Minardo. "It is a more complex portrait than the others."
It all started with a $10 donation
Ms Minardo's subject Gemma Sisia, also known as Gem, grew up on a sheep farm with her parents and seven brothers in Armidale, in New South Wales.
On a trip to Tanzania, she found love and got married. In 2002, after being given two acres of land by her father in law, a village chairman in the Moshono village in Arusha, Tanzania, she went back to her hometown and started a 'Buy a Brick' campaign to help build the first classroom.
“My first donation was $10 and I had no building experience before moving to Africa, so the likelihood of the school actually getting off the ground was pretty hopeless,” Mrs Sisia says.
The school was named after St Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes.
Today, the school has 1,800 primary and secondary school students over three campuses. This month, 24 of St Jude's former students graduated from university.
"They are the students who I started the school with and they have now started coming out of university and there are people in Australia who have been providing these students with scholarships since they started in year one,” Mrs Sisia told SBS Italian.
Ms Minardo and Mrs Sisia have already had five video calls, and the painting is almost finished.
In the portrait, Mrs Sisia is seen with three students and she's holding a pen, with the landscape typical of Arusha, a town 100 km from Mt Kilimanjaro that's visible in the background.
“This painting represents Gemma’s vision come true," says Ms Minardo.
"I wanted to represent Gemma, her soul, her desire to create the school. It’s not just a portrait of Gemma but it represents what she has created."
“Gemma started with three children but I have never thought this represents the beginning.
"It represents the moment in which she realised that these three children, like many other children, had the right to good education”.
Mrs Sisia says when she looks at the painting, it reminds her of how far the school has come.
The school follows only two criteria in its recruitment: academic talent and a genuine financial need. Source: Courtesy of the School of St Jude
”If I didn't have the community behind me, there's no way the school would exist.
“When I look at the painting, I think of how much appreciation I have for everyone who has helped me get here. It makes me think of all the people who supported me from day one and who are still supporting me today,” she says.
“It makes me think of what a group effort can achieve when every single person just does something.
“We have people who all they do is share our posts on social media. We have other people who work at the school, we have people who pay for scholarships, the sponsors. We have other people who pay for buildings and capital works,” Mrs Sisia explained.
90 percent of the school's funding comes from Australian families who signed up to sponsor a child or to donate in other ways.
"This tells me that Australians are very honorable and charitable and good people," she says.
St Jude’s occupies three campuses and operates 27 school buses that ensure students safely reach the school from their homes. Source: Foto fornita dalla scuola di St Jude
Mrs Sisia says later this month they plan to deliver even bigger food packs as many families are starving due to the pandemic.
But COVID-19 has also made it harder to raise enough money to run the school but Mrs Sisia remains optimistic.
"Financially it’s hard. A lot of our wonderful sponsors or donors in Australia have lost their jobs, or their businesses are shutting down. So we’ve found it hard to do fundraising but we just have to fight it. We’ve gone through lots of dark times and you’ve just got to survive."
For Ms Minardo, painting by distance was an "enriching" experience.
"With all the videos I've watched and the images I have surrounded myself with, it has been almost like travelling to Africa. I've also bought a bigger TV screen so I feel like I am there when I speak with Gemma via video link," she says.
"I was so connected... with my mind, I was connected to her mind."
Mrs Sisia hopes the painting will lead to more Australians finding out about the school.
“Who knows, some people may become volunteers or donors,” she said.
"Our kids will really have an impact. To have students who are well educated, but have a sense of using their skills to create change in their country is a very powerful combination.”
