Suffer the little children

We have children on our mind this week, in many ways. We acknowledge the pioneering work done by the Philippine Children’s Medical Center in the last quarter century, and how it continues to deliver quality medical care on par with the best private hospitals. From across six decades we hear the voices of the children of the Terezin concentration camp, an old fortress town just outside of Prague, in a unique collection of drawings and poems by some of the 15,000 children who lived there from 1941 to 1945. And we want to make a pitch for a unique project that will benefit street kids and children in jail.

A French diplomat decided to continue the art therapy work she had been doing with children in Kosovo and in India when she was assigned to the Philippines a few years ago. Bénédicte Meyssan linked up with Childhope Asia Phils., an organization that provides alternative education for about 3,000 street kids in Metro Manila each year, and together they held painting sessions with street kids, initially at Paco Park for lack of any other venue. Then they had all these art works–the next logical step was to have an exhibit, and this they did at the Makati Cinema Square. Next link in this chain of hope was Fr. Pierre Tritz’s Albert Schweitzer Association, which provided a more regular venue for the art sessions, at the ERDA Tech center in Pandacan. Then came the Kokkyo naki Kodomotachi–KNK or Children Without Borders–a Japanese non-profit organization that also works with underprivileged children.

All these come together in a fund raising dinner on Thursday, April 28 at the Zen Garden of Greenbelt Park. The indefatigable energies of Bénédicte and her friends in the expat community–including the tireless Karen Kelley who says to me at the end of lunch one day, "There’s another thing we need to talk about"–have put together a "gourmet banquet, graceful Indonesian, Indian and Filipino dances, a fashion show with great models dressed by Lulu Tan-Gan (she’s presenting an Asian-themed mini-collection), a vintage fashion show by street children plus a raffle in an ‘Asian and love spirit’" called Street Arts to raise money to continue the art therapy programs for street children and children in jail, helped along by sponsors Ayala Land, Asiatype, Baliblue, Maphilindo, Jewelmer, Mandarin Oriental Hotel and Saga events.

It’ll be a Thursday evening well spent; fun guaranteed. Contact Bénédicte (0916.442.4478) or Karen (526.0357) for tickets to Street Arts (P2,000 apiece–it’s a fund-raiser, after all). Let’s do this one for the kids.