During a gathering at OrphanCare Foundation’s office in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, on Thursday, 25th January, Da Vinci Creative Kids handed over a cheque worth RM 10,900 that were collected through Da Vinci Crafity Charity Workshop – Craft for Kindness.
With the famous tagline “Every Child Needs A Family”, OrphanCare Foundation is a non-government organisation that advocates and works to give children who are in institutions and unplanned newborn babies whose lives are at risk an opportunity to grow up in the care of a loving family.
As a children’s arts & crafts school founded by The One Academy, one of Asia’s most respected institutions in creative education, the institution sees fit to lend a hand and provide much needed aid to OrphanCare in solidarity with marginalised Malaysian children.
The cheque handover was a follow up event to the charity workshop organised by both Da Vinci Creative Kids and OrphanCare Foundation which took place in November and December 2017 as a conducive platform for children aged 3 to 12 years old to take up a new creative candle craft while also contributing to a good cause. The candle crafts were inspired by Disney Pixar’s Coco feature film.
For the first part of the charity, about 50% of student participation fees for the workshop were collected and channeled to OrphanCare in support of their various necessities including the operation of baby hatches to save newborns, food bank, medical expenses for abandoned children, counselling campaigns, support for temporary foster caregiver, facilitation of adoption and other noble missions.
In addition, a special auction will feature 9 artworks created by Da Vinci students as young as 9 to 17 years old. Proceeds from the auction, which will be organised by OrphanCare, will be used to ensure that children in Malaysia have opportunities to grow up in a family environment rather than institutions.
With guidance from their Da Vinci mentors, the students created their masterpieces based on given themes ‘Love & Hope’, ‘Joy of Music’ and ‘Family Reunion’. The artworks consist of huge acrylic on canvas paintings measuring up to 90cm-120cm in length.
“I hope that the artworks will be able to help OrphanCare Foundation in generating more funds to sustain a continuous effort in helping needy children to regain the basic right of living a normal and fulfilling life,” said Creative Programme Director of Da Vinci Arts & Crafts Creative Development Centre Jimmy Tan. “We look forward to organise more of such meaningful activities in the near future.
OrphanCare also feels strongly about providing support to families whose children experienced sexual abuse at the hands of carers, institution owners or by other children while in institutions. Therefore, funds and help are needed to support deinstitutionalisation activities as research also shows that children growing up in institutions are extremely vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse.
“We need to do more for these children, and to continue to work towards a family based care model in Malaysia that helps prevent the abuse of children in institutions”, said Puan Noraini Hashim, Trustee of OrphanCare Foundation.
The One Academy of Communication Design
http://www.fsi.com.my/the-one/
The 9 artworks created by Da Vinci Creative Kids students for OrphanCare’s fundraising auction.
