JK Arts Foundation conducts an art-making workshop in the remote village of Hurhundpora Pattan, Baramulla (north Kashmir)

30 November 2021

JK Arts Foundation (JKAF) conducted a first-of-its-kind art workshop at Government Middle School Hurhundpora (Zone Nehalpora Pattan district). The nineteen students (aged 10-13 years) who participated in the workshop were taught the Madhubani art form, in the virtual mode. The workshop was facilitated by JKAF team members, Tanveer Maqbool and Akeel Rashid, who informed the participants, students as well as teachers, that JK Arts Foundation promises to impart art education for children in the most remote villages.

On this occasion, the students were provided -- free of cost -- sketch pens, drawing papers, pencils, sharpeners and erasers to equip them for the workshop. The students expressed joy and contentment as they set their pencils on the drawing papers. It was an experience they relished, the reason being, according to them, that they had never been involved in fun learning activities such as art-making; a form of therapy and self-expression as termed by their teachers.

As the workshop began and the students got engrossed in the creative process of art-making, the teachers were surprised and happy to see an enormous amount of concentration and focus in their students and, at the end of the workshops when students completed the drawings, learn that they were doing so well.

The headmaster of Government Middle School Hurhundpora, Manzoor Ahmad, expressed gratitude to the JK Arts Foundation for conducting the first-ever art-making workshop for the schoolgoing children in Nehalpora Zone. "I hope that you will visit our school again and conduct another workshop for the students. We would also like your organisation to conduct similar workshops in other Government-run schools of Nehalpora zone," he said.

"It is for the first time that a non-profit organization has visited our school to acquaint students with the art-making that provides emotional support and aesthetic pleasure to the students. My recommendation would be, engage more students of our area in art-making," said a teacher.

Hurhundpora is a remote village, divided by a stream, located in the Pattan sub-division of north Kashmir's Baramulla district and during summertime the students, who live on the other side of this remote village, have to wade waist-deep -- due to the lack of a concrete bridge over the stream -- through running waters to reach the school. The workshop was especially aimed at praising the efforts of those students who endured hardships to continue their studies.