Pablo Picasso once said, “Every child is an artist.” The importance of creativity and imagination should never be underestimated, especially to a child. Art lets beauty be discovered, innovation to be unveiled and can even allow us to see ourselves through a different lens.

Art is one way in which children in the Compassion programme can express themselves. Sometimes, they might even discover an unsuspected talent!

"I have seen these great painters of history and I want to be like them. I want to be an artist."

In Mexico, 12-year-old Hector lives with his grandmother. As a young child, his grandmother enrolled him at the local Compassion project. It was there that they discovered Hector has synaesthesia, a condition where two or more of the five senses that are normally experienced separately are involuntarily joined together. Hector describes it as, “Colours come to my mind in waves. They fill my sight and overflow my senses. I am not okay until I let them out … they only come out through my paintings.”

Project Director Lupita helped to enrol Hector in a special school with an extended arts programme and encouraged him to draw and take part in competitions. Today, Hector is a national painting champion in his age group and practices painting three hours every day.

Hector proudly showing a collection of his paintings.

When Sarai was seven, she was enrolled in her local Compassion project in El Salvador and started to draw and paint. Her parents encouraged her and she began to paint everything in sight – her father’s boat, their home, even the walls of the classroom at the Compassion project. Seeing her talent, the staff at her project successfully put in a proposal for extra funding for Sarai to attend art classes. Today, Sarai is a confident student who dreams of becoming a professional painter.

Sarai has painted the walls of their family home.

God gives all of us different talents and as today is World Art Day, let’s celebrate the beauty of art!

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