Luamar Zwahlen, Cup of Color, St. Gallen
August 19th, 2026
Tears of Joy
I was sitting in the café of the coworking space and couldn’t hold back my tears. On my screen, I saw the first images of children in Yemen painting on the community murals. We’d been working toward this for 20 months. The Yemeni team was quite skeptical at first: many couldn’t really picture what these community murals would look like. They were even more skeptical about what the whole endeavor was supposed to achieve: Can such an initiative truly promote peace and social cohesion? Can the artists find hope and build their self-confidence through this?
We Paint Hope
A woman participating in the mural project on the university campus
We at Cup of Color can wholeheartedly affirm this after a decade of community-based mural art. Ten years ago, Damon & Rahel Lam founded Cup of Color because they saw the power inherent in this art form. As a family, they have traveled the world to paint “walls of hope” alongside people facing the most difficult circumstances. These walls are lasting and impressively large reminders that the people in this neighborhood were seen and are not forgotten. For the people themselves, it is often a daily reminder that, even in the most dire circumstances, they can create beauty together—brushstroke by brushstroke. Or, applied to life: together, step by step. “We paint hope” is Cup of Color’s mission, and this mission has already taken us from red-light districts in India, through refugee shelters in Chad, to the children’s rooms of families living in poverty in Germany. And now to Yemen.
Hope for Yemen
Vision Hope International has invited us to collaborate with them and their partner organizations in Yemen to create these community murals on Yemeni infrastructure. In doing so, we develop the design together with the people from the neighborhood. We ask questions designed to connect people with their own resources: What does hope mean to you? What brings you joy? Or what do you cherish most in life? From all the sketches and answers collected from the participants, the artists in charge of the wall design will develop a central motif. The large image always has room for many small individual drawings: this way, even the youngest children can add their own personal artwork to the larger motif. This combination of a shared main motif with many small individual works of art symbolizes the greater collective whole, of which each and every individual is a part and in which they find their place.
Yusef, one of the lead artists working on a community mural
Normally, we at Cup of Color send a team of artists to guide the participants through the process. But the Yemen project was unique in this regard: due to the number of walls and the security situation, it was decided early on that Cup of Color would oversee the entire project remotely. This meant first finding English-speaking Yemeni artists in Ash Shamayatayn. Our team developed training materials and provided three artists—Mohamed, Yusef, and Rahma—with a week of intensive training. In addition to the technical aspects of mural painting, the training focused on learning trauma-informed approaches, creating an engaging atmosphere around the mural through play and fun, and documenting the process with photos and story-gathering. Afterward, these three trained another 15 Arabic-speaking artists and assistants. Then it was time to get to work on the walls: the local teams, together with people from the neighborhood, designed six walls—on school buildings, health centers, and universities. The feedback was overwhelming. “Yemen needs hope, and we still have so many walls left—we absolutely have to do this again,” or “I was honestly very skeptical about what this would accomplish, but now that I’ve seen with my own eyes what it does for people, I think this initiative is fantastic”—reactions like these and others reached me here in Switzerland and fill me with incredible gratitude.
Thank you to Vision Hope for placing their trust in us and entering into this partnership, especially Thekra, whose tireless efforts made these walls possible together with our partner organization, Building Foundation Development. A very special thank you to our three artists—Mohamed, Yusef, and Rahma—whose dedication has given the project a heart, hands, and a face.
Finally, here’s one of the many stories these three artists were able to experience while working on the walls:
He had never held a pen, but he held a paintbrush
Anwar, painting as part of the collaborative mural project at the hospital
Amid the vibrant colors of the mural at Khalifa Hospital stood Anwar—a man who can neither read nor write—watching the proceedings with great admiration and a desire to be part of this initiative. But he seemed afraid and therefore hesitated. This was because he was convinced that he wasn’t good at drawing.
But the team members welcomed him warmly and encouraged him. They assured him that the real goal was to create something together, not to master the highest form of art. Little by little, his fears faded, and he began to draw step by step until he had successfully completed his contribution to the mural with great dedication.
A look of pure happiness lit up his face when he realized that he was able to actively contribute to the completion of the mural and that his presence was welcomed and appreciated by everyone.
The story didn’t end that day. The next day, Anwar returned to the wall with his wife and children to join in the painting once again. At the end of the event, he expressed his sincere gratitude to the team for their kindness and encouragement. Both had left a deep impression on him and made his story a vivid testament to the fact that genuine inclusion and encouragement throw open the doors to participation for everyone—regardless of their circumstances or background.
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