April 12, 2008	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 5, 1429

KARACHI: If you do a commendable job consistently for the benefit of economically under-privileged people, particularly children, in the field of education, then you find that there is no dearth of individuals, groups and corporate bodies to support you through efforts and finances. A case in point is The Citizens Foundation which is supported among others by a group of dedicated men and women — mostly women, the men are generally their husbands. They call themselves Supporters of TCF.

Every year the STCF organises what it calls Marathon or a walk for a cause to raise funds for schools – 455 at the moment but by August the number is expected to cross the 500 mark. This is not to include the two teachers’ training schools.

On Friday they organised Art-a-Thon, which was both an art exhibition of children’s drawings and a competition. There were about 1,000 works of art, mostly done by individuals. Then there were models which were team efforts.

It was a stupendous job selecting the exhibits from about 40,000 entries. Full marks to the three judges, Samina Raja of Canvas Gallery and two artists Naiza Khan and Syeda Habib who brought down the number to a thousand before selecting the winners. More than full marks, if it could be so, to Nighat Dawoodi and her team of volunteers, all women, who curated the show.

A large room at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture was bursting at the seams by children and their parents, both waiting with bated breath for the results to be announced. In order to make it a level playing field for children, the top three prizes and two special prizes were given to winners in each of the three categories earmarked on the basis of age groups.

There were not very obvious signs of disappointment among the children who couldn’t make it because being selected to display their works was no mean achievement in itself.

In the past, children from TCF schools had done very well in inter-school art competitions, but this time they were put in different brackets. Children of other schools competed in what was an inter-school competition.

The themes laid down for the participants were three – “My beautiful country”, “Flowers of Pakistan” and “Safety on roads”. The kids’ creativity and aesthetic sense were matched by the depth of understanding of the themes. The organisers are toying with the idea of offering the drawings to any corporate body which would be interested in featuring them on their 2009 calendars. Not a bad idea at all. —Asif Noorani