Art For Everyone was an event organized by three of my friends who wanted to promote art in the rural area of our hometown and bring out creativity in underprivileged children. I thought this event would be an incredible opportunity for underprivileged children to come together, make interesting art works,have fun and learn. I was extremely excited to volunteer for this event because I love being around young children. I was in the organizing committee and was instructed to take care of children, give proper guidelines and ensure that the event was running smoothly.
We (the organizing committee) decided to divide this event into two sessions of three hours each which took place on two different days (25th August and 22nd September). The aim of first session was to introduce to children different art tools and then encourage them to make an artwork of their choice. The second session was a competition wherein children were given the liberty to choose one topic out of three topics and make an artwork.
All the members of the organizing committee (including me) were pleasantly surprised by the beautiful artworks children made and decided to celebrate their creativity by distributing their (favourite) ice-creams. To be honest, even though I love being around children, I was not very confident of participating in this activity as initially, I felt doubtful of interacting with the children (due to language barrier). However, my parents taught me “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone”. I understood the importance of this quote when I found out my friends wanted my help with the logistics of the event. During these two sessions, I immersed myself into interacting with the children. Initially, I was very hesitant to approach the children and talk to them because I was not fluent in the language Gujarati. I had identified a challenge and I wanted to overcome it and show perseverance in this activity. As I was not very fluent in speaking Gujarati, I use to be with a friend who was fluent in speaking Gujarati. My friend helped me interact with the children and get to know them better.
In addition to the above, I felt motivated towards giving the event my 100% as we engaged with issues of global significance. We realised that underprivileged children are unable to afford resources due to poverty (leading to restricted opportunities). Creating a platform to raise awareness about art, providing access and a medium for children to learn and explore helped us contribute positively towards issues of global significance. Moreover, as we dealt with children, we had to keep in mind ethical code of conduct. As children can be naive, we determined to not mislead them in any way and ensured that we provided the right guidance and assistance to them (along with adult supervision).
This experience ended up teaching me more than I had expected. While talking to the children, I learnt the how they find joy in little things in life and not complain about their financial situation or living standard. I learnt to be grateful for the things that I have in my life. I am happy that I volunteered for this and took a new challenge head on. This event was conducted in a span of one month and if I had given up, I wouldn’t be able to learn so much, realise the importance of working collaboratively and develop stronger team building and communication skills.