Art in your Life

Session on ‘Art in your Life’for Adolescents
during COVID -19 Pandemic and beyond

Albert Einstein said,
‘Art is standing with one hand extended into the universe and one hand extended into the world, and letting ourselves be a conduit for passing energy.’

Art therapy is an integrative mental health and human services profession that enriches the lives of individuals, families, and communities through active art-making, creative processes, applied psychological theory, and human experience within a psychotherapeutic relationship.

Every year, Shanti Ashram serves nearly 70,000 children in India. Effort is taken in each and every programme here to make it child centered. To ensure this and their active engagement, different kinds of child friendly methodologies and activities are used. Art can play a vital role in engaging children. Art is said to be powerful because it not only has a positive effect on children but also can potentially influence our culture, politics, and even the economy. When we see a powerful work of art, you feel it touching deep within your core, giving us the power to make real-life changes.

During the Covid-19 pandemic,Shanti Ashram provided children an opportunity to share their talents through an online competition. And now, we have come up with another initiative, ‘Art in your life’ where the conceptualization is informed by the theoretical understanding of ‘Art Therapy’. As we know, art enhances a child’s creativity, and critical thinking. As Albert Einstein rightly said ‘Art is standing with one hand extended into the universe and one hand extended into the world, and letting ourselves be a conduit for passing energy.’ Keeping this in mind, in this initiative, we will be providing opportunities for children to gain both theoretical understanding of art therapy and a practical opportunity to create art. We will also be emphasizing the importance and value of ‘Art in their life’.

Resource person for this innovative initiative will be Ms. Prema Rangachary, Founder of Vidya Vanam. A trained professional from the Oxford University, U.K., in teaching English as second language. She has been promoting the need, to advance novel changes in the curriculum and to foster education especially in regions where resources are limited. As the director of a school, she has engineered innovative programs which emphasizes the concept of art can enhancing the understanding of language and sciences.

Programme