(Left) ‘Toy Train and Me’ by Dipankar Chhetri and ‘I Live Along the DHR’ by Isha Barailey. Courtesy Vivek Baid

Siliguri, Feb. 27: The London-based Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Society’s Education Group has launched notelets, or greeting cards, featuring the two best designs from the 2006 DHR Darjeeling Schools Art Competition.

The money raised through the sale of the cards would be used for promoting the DHR among schoolchildren of the region, besides supporting the education of poor children residing along the tracks of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR).

“These attractive notelets celebrate the local children’s expertise and will help fund further work by the DHRS Education Group,” the Society’s sources said.

The two paintings are “I live along the DHR”, the winning entry by Isha Barailey, and “Toy Train and Me” by Dipankar Chhetri. Both young artists are from Darjeeling’s Gyanoday School.

The cards are available in packs of 10 (five notelets of each design) at £5 per pack.

“We are extremely delighted by the news,” Chitra Dutta, a member of the Inner Wheel Club, said. “We have been organising the annual sit-and-draw contest for the past five years. In the last three, we collaborated with the DHRS Education Group. Generally, we make posters out of the winning entries and put them all over the town to generate DHR awareness among the local people. The Society’s initiative to come up with cards for international sale will encourage the children of our region as much as it will promote the toy train globally,” she added.

Vivek Baid, a member of the Siliguri-based DHR India Support Group whose children were the firsts to receive complimentary cards from the Society, said: “They are attractive and will go a long way in furthering the cause of the DHR.” The Support Group is the local partner for the DHRS in its community-related activities.

Formed as a sub-committee of the Society in 2005, the Education Group aims “to encourage and support local schools and colleges along the DHR in achieving an increased awareness of, and commitment to, the railway.”

It recently came up with “My Diary of a Train Journey”, a four-page leaflet with 20 questions on the DHR which children are expected to fill up on board the toy train. The DHR India Support Group recently published a colour-me book for children, the content of which was developed by two Education Group members, retired schoolteacher Marilyn Metz and her conservation-architect husband Peter Tiller.