The Institute Of Creative Arts along with Restore Belize, NCFC, and other stakeholders organized its very first " Chalk- Up Di Paak" initiative to promote educational awareness on the rights of a child. A total of 40 children including scholarship recipients from restore Belize participated in the event with the guidance of local Belizean artist Gilvano Swasey and his other fellow artists.
The event was set to take place at battlefield park this past weekend but due to bad weather, the organizers had to improvise, and the event was moved upstairs at the Bliss Center where the children swapped out concrete for sand paper as their canvas. The director of the institute of creative arts Kim Vasquez shared more with us today.
Kim Vasquez, Director of Institute of Creative Arts
"We had this idea as a part of the committee for planning World Children's Day, which is usually celebrated on the 28th of November globally. So the Institute of Creative Arts was a part of that planning committee, along with the NCFC, Restore Belize, and various other stakeholders."
"And we had this idea, we were bouncing around for some time to do a chalk art activity, especially for children. So this presented the opportunity for us to partner with Restore Belize, with the office for a special envoy for women and children, as well as the NCFC to make it a reality."
"It was going to be at Battlefield Park. We had to postpone it once because of the weather. And then last Saturday, it looked like the weather, again, was going really bad. So we moved over here to the Belisle Gallery."
"And it ended up being better than we had planned. We worked with sandpaper as the backdrop for the artwork. We still worked in chalk. The creative director was Gilvano Swasey, and we had six notable Belizean artists."
"They worked along with groups of children to produce the artwork you see in the gallery today. It was to focus on the rights, on children's rights. We know there are 54 rights. Some of those rights are the responsibility of parents, and some are the responsibility of the government."
"And so on Saturday, we actually began with our presentation from the NCFC, the communication officer took the children through those rights, had that discussion with them, and then we broke out into groups, along with the six artists, to brainstorm and to come up with ideas, so how to portray children's rights in art."
"It was a very rewarding experience. They had a lot of fun. I think both the children and the artists took away, something really meaningful from the activity."
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