School Art Program

When I asked little kids to make art of their choice on white paper with colors, they stared at me with puzzle look.

Santa sir told that they were doing the painting for the first time. Apart from pencil drawing of different figures in their copy, school kids in the remote hills are not familiar with painting with colors in large white sheet.

I asked them to draw any sort of things: birds, animals, house, mountain, river, jungle, flowers, butterflies etc. that they like.

The School Art Program was organized in Pokhari Primary School some 3 hours of uphill walk from Birendranagar (Mahendra Highway) where we (Books for Nepal/ Global Action Coalition) are also providing food (satu) to some 134 students who are mainly from Chepang ethinic community.

During recent visit of Rob Rowen of GAC to some of the hill schools where we are doing food progam, he talked about art exchange program among schools in US and Nepal/Chitwan. This provides the opportunity to students of two countries to share their feeling through pictures. We hope the school partnership would be helpful for sharing knowledge and experience that would be instrumental for educational development in Nepal.

Students were very shy to talk but they depicted beautiful pictures though they had little or no knowledge in painting. I was obliged to give them few tips so I drew the picture of hills, trees, stream, terraces and house showing how to outline and fill the different colors on pictures. I asked them which color I should use to fill for trees. "Green" was unanimous answer. With their instructions, I completed the art and they also enjoyed it. Students came forward to read the caption "Let's protect jungle. Let's keep environment clean" written in the poster.

A woman from health post came to school to inoculate the tetanus vaccine to students of grade 1. Others were already vaccinated before. She informed that vaccine is effective for 12 years. Little kids were little hesitant to come forward but they were surprisingly quiet while inoculating.

After that satu was distributed to students. I enquired them about satu, they just smiled back. With their expression, I knew they enjoyed the food. They themselves washed their bowl and spoon after eating food. Then, they went to class room to resume their study.