Creativity a way for young to express themselves

Creativity a way for young to express themselves

Christina Schott, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Two mountains, a river running down to a valley, some rice
fields and houses in the foreground; above all, the sun.

Risky, eleven years old, paints with great enthusiasm what she
wishes to see in her surroundings. Of about 80 children living in
Kelurahan Paseban, about two-thirds had almost the same idea as
Risky, when they painted at the Gambar Anak (children's drawing)
festival at the Kelurahan Paseban subdistrict office on Sunday.

The reality is somewhat different: Risky and her friends live
in Paseban in the center of Jakarta, where the streets are small
and the houses closely packed together, leaving little open
space. The railway is directly behind the SMA school building,
where the festival took place, and the garbage disposal site is
directly in front of the railway.

A kampong like Paseban does not offer much space for children
-- playgrounds are hard to find.

Children need the opportunity to express themselves. Their
world revolves around playing -- and if there is not enough space
to play, they should at least have the chance to express their
fantasies through their own creativity", says Sanggar Paseban's
Irawati, who initiated the drawing festival, together with her
husband, Gallis Agus Sunardi.

The house and studio of the two artists became a kind of
playground for the children from the neighborhood, since they
have one of the few gardens in the area. Some of the children
show a genuine interest in the visual arts. "I think this program
is a good way of helping them realize their own skills," says
Irawati. "We all want to support the children's creativity,"
agrees subdistrict head Suaeb Abdul Gani, who has supported the
program generously.

"I am very happy that the idea for this event came from people
living inside the kampong. They understand best about the needs
of the children, given their surroundings."

But to develop creativity needs time, as the experience during
the workshops on Sunday showed. The style of the mountain
landscape that most of the children drew looked uncannily similar
to the illustrations in Indonesian elementary school books.

The few children brave enough to start drawing without a ruler
or stencil were often interrupted by their parents. "Dear
parents, please allow your children to paint freely without
interrupting them," was consequently one of the most repeated
announcements by the organizers on Sunday.

Nevertheless, there were some amazing results, the most
remarkable, perhaps, by five-year-old Dafi. As one of the
youngest participants he created a most expressive painting,
entering the list of 12 best pictures, chosen later by friends of
Sanggar Paseban.

But this was only the first exercise. The second followed
after the lunch break, when the children were asked to paint in
teams of four on new plastic dustbins.

"The idea is to built up awareness about the environment,"
explains Abdul Gani. "If we later on put these colorful dustbins
all over Paseban, maybe more people will remember where they
should put their waste when they see the paintings of their own
children on the bins."

The children obviously enjoyed the colorful and exciting
festival, which was well organized. With large markers they
explored the form of the garbage bins without any hesitation.
They forgot about rulers and stencils and finally let their
creativity freely express itself. The results are soon to be seen
all over Paseban.