KOCHI: The walls of Ernakulam Childline building no longer look drab and boring. Thanks to the efforts of three students from Belgium, Anaité Vandenhole, Céline Demartelaere and Jakob Jordens, the walls today sport myriad hues.
The Belgian students doing their bachelors in applied psychology from Vives University of Applied Sciences in Belgium, are here as exchange students at Rajagiri College of Social Sciences. According to the students, they decided to collaborate with Childline as a part of their project. "Child abuse is a very serious issue and we find that the Childline here is doing a commendable job trying to provide support to kids who have undergone abuse," said Anaité Vandenhole.
She said through this campaign they wanted people to recognise the work being done by the organisation.
Anaité said, "Our project comprises of writing a report based on the data regarding child sexual abuse cases in the time period 2018-2019."
According to her, another part of their project is launching a campaign. "Through this campaign, we want to spread awareness about the presence of child abuse in society. It is there even though the cases never come out since it involves children who are unable to recognise what is happening to them," she said.
It took three days for them and a few other artists to paint walls. "We owe the design and execution to Prem Sanker, who is also known as Doodley. Without him, we would not have been able to achieve this" said Anaité.
The new artworks showcase pictures that vary from happy children reading books and playing with his or her peers to kids being silenced and abused. On their future plans, the students said, "We will do many more such artworks. Especially, at places where they will be able to catch the public's eye. For this, we are planning to get help from other artists."