Other Topics : Art Culture - Fashion - Tourism

Latest & Hot News about our Art and Culture

Return to current news about Art and Culture

Nepali children's labour of love for tsunami victims
Indo-Asian News Service

Kathmandu, Feb 15 (IANS) A NGO set up by an Indian philosopher has organised an exhibition of paintings in Indonesia by children from around the world to pay tributes to those orphaned by the tsunami disaster.

Students from Kathmandu's Budhanilkantha School, Galaxy Public School, Alok 
Vidhyashram, Rai School and Brihaspati School worked after school hours to create paintings that would bring comfort to the victims.

"Drawings of Love", a collection of 22,000 paintings done by children from 33 countries including Nepal, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, America, Australia and New Zealand began in Jakarta Wednesday.

AS many as 3,000 framed paintings will be exhibited at the National Museum in Jakarta for three days. The collection will then move to schools of Aceh province, the worst hit by the tsunami. Some 100,000 people died in Indonesia. 

"Drawings of Love" was inspired by Indonesia's First Lady, Kristiani Herawati Yudhoyono, who had asked children worldwide to send messages of love for the 8,000 children orphaned by the tsunami that struck the nation in December 2004.

The appeal was taken up by "The Oneness-Heart-Tears and Smiles", an international humanitarian organisation founded by Indian philosopher and artist Sri Chinmoy. It has centres in 50 countries.

The NGO organised the exhibition, hoping the drawings would give joy and hope to the children and others in Indonesia who lost their parents, relatives or belongings and who are still suffering from the after effects of the disaster.

Many of the paintings had loving messages written in the Indonesian language like "I am always thinking of you" or "I am your friend".

Indonesian schoolchildren flocked to the inauguration and the organisers hope for greater interaction in the coming days.

Sri Chinmoy sent a personal message, which was read out at the opening ceremony.
"I also happen to be an orphan," he wrote. "I lost my mother and my father at a very early age. May the children of Aceh be inundated with god's love in and through countless caring and sharing human beings here on earth."

The tsunami hit the Indian Ocean region, killing some 220,000 people in the region and leaving millions homeless.