Over 200 students completed the 2 year Primary and Secondary Art Skills Training Project. The project was launched in July 2014 and since then, these kids have pretty much learned all they can learn about art at this stage. Today marks that end of the 2 year artistic journey and a ceremony was held at the Bliss to celebrate this accomplishment and also to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. Youth Development Officer from the Institute of Creative Arts Kim Vasquez discussed the objective and the vision for this project.
Kim Vasquez - Youth Development Officer, NICH
"This has been a very exciting and momentous project, this you see here is the primary schools art skills training pilot project and so today is the culmination of a 2 year pilot project funded by the Republic of China Taiwan and implemented through the Institute of Creative Arts. Ms. Fiona the art instructor, she has done a splendid job, over the past few years we have had children from various primary schools in the city, they have competed in international and local art contests and they have won gold and numerous prizes and have also had several art exhibits over the course of the project as well."
Courtney Weatherburne
"Tell us more about the project, what the kids actually did the experience and how many kids were involved?"
Kim Vasquez - Youth Development Officer, NICH
Okay, so the project encompasses visual art, and they learned the different types of art under that, they learned how to paint, how to sketch, they learnt some handy craft as well and it has been not only one primary school, they were selected, an open call was made for students who have a keen interest in learning art and so it has been the first intake and there was also some summer programs as well so it has been a very successful program as well."
"We would love to see this project have continuity, definitely in addition to impacting children, we also had some teachers who were trained, Ms. Fiona is now working closely with the training team from the Ministry of Education along with Mr. Leroy Green and so yes it has been very beneficial. It is our commitment to art education here at the institute of creative arts and you know it helps us to fulfil our objective of training children, of giving them access to art education especially, working with the Ministry of education, we are very pleased to have a project like this that can actually be in primary schools and have that direct impact with the children."
40 teachers were also trained to teach kids about art. An e book was also launched today at the event. It’s a teachers tutorial to guide them in teaching their students about art. The next step is to reach out to the Embassy of Taiwan for further assistant to continue the program.
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