When Khushi Kumari, a Class V student at BDM International School, was handed crayons and paper and asked to depict malnutrition, she was taken aback. After a few moments of thought, she drew a child dying of hunger in her mother’s lap, while in another part of the world children were throwing away excess food.
Drawings and paintings by 2,500 children from 154 schools across the state are on display at four Metro stations in the city to mark the second year of Horlicks Aahar Abhiyan.
The exhibition, Art for Nutrition, hosted by Metro Railway in association with GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare and Care India, was inaugurated on Friday and will be on till June 15. The paintings are on display at Shyambazar, Esplanade, Park Street and Mahanayak Uttam Kumar (Tollygunge) Metro stations.
“We received an overwhelming response from schools in Bengal last year, which is why we decided to make it an annual event. We collected 27,500 drawings from students across the country and donated Rs 60,000 to Care India. The sum will be used to educate mothers and children in Purulia about their right to nourishment and entitlements,” said Siddharth Singh, the vice-president (sales) of GlaxoSmithKline.
Care India has zeroed in on Jhalda II and Purulia II to work with malnourished children. “We chose Purulia because the rate of malnourishment is highest in the region. We are targeting children aged three to six as they are the ones who suffer the most,” said Bandita Sengupta, the project manager of Care India.
Metro Railway is also upbeat about the campaign. “It is overwhelming to see young children expressing their support for the campaign. We are proud to be associated with the cause,” said Radhey Shyam, the general manager of Metro Railway.
Agreed Protyush Kumar Ghosh, deputy general manager of Metro Railway. He emphasised how important it was to bridge the gap between excess and scarcity through campaigns such as this. “Children are our future. They are the ones who need to be sensitised. This effort may be just a drop in the ocean, but we hope to make a difference somewhere, no matter how little that is,” he signed off.
Abhishek Ray, who takes the Metro from Dum Dum to Park Street every day, stopped for a few minutes to browse the paintings on display at Park Street station. “The painting exhibition is indeed a very powerful medium to address the issue of malnutrition. It is a novel initiative. Some of these paintings are brilliant and show how kids too can have a mature outlook on grave issues like malnutrition,” said the civil engineer.
