Mukuru children find a way to color their lives.
Inside Ruben Centre’s art room, paintings, drawings and handmade crafts adorn the corrugated sheets, amplifying the children’s lively artistic expressions. Of the mounted art pieces, a variety mirror the ongoing efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic which has affected livelihoods globally.
Facilitated by Christopher, the children visit the art room in class streams. Each stream engages in a unique project. The children feel inspired to communicate their experiences at home and in school with the unending pandemic, in black and white, with added bits of vibrant colors.
Given the increasing inadequacy of health services in the Mukuru slum, art has empowered the vulnerable children from Mukuru to advocate for safety living as well as to encourage the surrounding community to live in harmony. Creating art pieces has also kept the children occupied, thereby preventing them from engaging in harmful vices such as drug abuse and instigating self-harm.
Not only has this helped the children but also the adults from the Mukuru community who are artists. This was captured in a short documentary by Angela Pashayan and other friends of the Ruben Centre. The initial objective was to bring a mosaic to the slums of Kenya but ended up as spreading messages of hope through mosaic art.
Outside the art room, most of the children grapple with a lack of adequate resources to paint, color or create impactful art content from home. This is due to their parents’ and guardians’ inability to sustain their day to day lives, let alone their creative endeavors. As a result, the Ruben Centre remains open to children interested in creating art content as schools remain officially closed.
Fortunately, children with imaginative minds retain their inspiration from the artistic display inside the Ruben Centre which inspire positive change and action. The children’s brilliance of thought is also nurtured by the implemented Competency Based Curriculum (CBC), which encourages children to utilize their talents.
Children form an integral part of society, as they are able to mold their future when they are exposed to creative safe spaces which inspire change. Additional support through funding and donations will further Ruben Centre’s incubation of creative programs.
It is worth noting that the Ruben Centre observes the Child Protection Policy while exposing the children in the Mukuru community to possibilities of being creators, curators and innovators through pen and paper.
By Stephen Tengo & Gregory Barake
Edits: GB