Today we spent the day with Jewel (who helps his parents run the guest house where we're staying). He has established a project called 'Children Art 4 Food' to help children who live on the street and in slums just outside of Dhaka. Every Friday and Saturday he takes canvasses and paints and find an open area where he can gather the children to paint. There would have been over 100 kids! Jewel selects the children who are keen to paint and then sets them up with their canvas, paintbrush and paints. These children have never been to school and have never painted - I can't describe the joy for them as they create their vibrant masterpieces! Jewel's aim is to hold exhibitions of the artworks to raise money to build a school on land that he has leased in the slum area. I am thinking of organising an exhibition in Australia for him.
Yesterday we visited a hand-made paper project on the eastern border of Bangladesh. The process is incredibly labourious and time-consuming. They mainly use jute scraps but also cotton scraps and silk. The raw materials are chopped up with a machete or scissors, then put though a grinder, boiled for 8 hours and washed and rinsed (colour might be added here) until it forms a soft pulp. The pulp is put in a deep vat of water and collected on a screen to form the sheet of pulp. The process has several more steps of pressing out the water, sun-drying, heat-drying, finishing, cutting and printing. These women work extememely hard - thank goodness it's a Fair Trade oganisation!
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