Routes 2 Roots Organises Art Camp in Chandigarh; Punjab Governor Inaugurates & Attends Opening to Encourage Children

After the runaway success of the first ever three-day residential art camp in Delhi organised by Routes 2 Roots in August this year, the NGO put up its first ever camp in the heart of Chandigarh on the occasion of Children’s Day in the month of November. Hosting 100 students from 17 Punjab schools, the camp was a unique, once-in-a-lifetime experience for the children. They were exposed to some of the finest artistes of India who were brought on as mentors and guided them over three days on various topics of art among other things.

The Chandigarh Art camp, which was a three-day event, and a part of a series, was organised by Routes 2 Roots with the support of their partner Max India Foundation, which has been providing aid to the NGO to extend its cultural education program to the schools of Punjab. The camp opened with a bang as Honourable Governor of Punjab & Chandigarh, Gulab Chand Kataria attended and inaugurated the three-day event. His presence and the time he spent interacting with the participating students and encouraging them was extremely inspiring for the children.

Six eminent artistes including Bhaskar Singha, Anoop Srivastava, Ganga Maharana, Manoj K Sahu, Gautam P Roy and Shantanu Sankar divided the students into six groups and taught them to paint on canvas with acrylic paints, which was an absolutely new experience for the children. They were given topics to paint and depict such as the environment or to produce on canvas their self-expression. Guided by the experts, the students blossomed into young artistes themselves and thrived in the conducive atmosphere and focus the camp provided for them. Teachers who accompanied the students from their schools revealed that the camp had been a great opportunity for the students since they didn’t have access to art teachers, nor the guidance of such experts when they entered into inter-school art competitions, much less such expensive art material, which was provided by the NGO to each student for the camp.

Organised and hosted by the NGO over three days at MAX Guest House in Sector 40 on the banks of the beautiful Sukhna lake in the heart of Chandigarh, the camp was also an experience that the students wouldn’t forget for many other reasons. The beautiful environment in the lap of nature in an open-air garden was the site of the art camp to provide students the ideal natural surroundings conducive for painting. Also, the specially curated meals that were created for them through the day as well as the learning and mentoring they received from artistes they would not otherwise have access to. Some students carried their paintings back with them, while others were picked up by the NGO team to put up on social media and other locations to highlight the work and draw attention to the work of the talented young painters.