Minister calls for nurturing children’s painting and photography talents

Lauding the artwork of children at the Arts Council-sponsored Karachi Youth Festival, Sindh Information Minister Nasir Hussain Shah said on Tuesday that we must provide all encouragement to these children and nurture their talent, which was a big national asset.

“We heartily support all such activities,” he said, speaking as chief guest at a painting and photography exhibition as part of the ongoing Karachi Youth Festival.

He lauded the enthusiasm of Arts Council President Ahmed Shah and said that the Arts Council, under his patronage, was doing a magnificent job not just by utilising the children’s talent but also taking grooming and training to those segments of society who otherwise could not afford the luxury.

Shah, in his address of welcome, said that the Arts Council had taken it upon itself to mitigate the rich-poor gap and make it clear to children from the less advantaged segment of society that they were in no way inferior to their affluent counterparts just because they were not on the same rung of the economic ladder as the rich.

That was why, he said, the Arts Council had been holding free classes in dance, music and the arts to groom the tremendous pool of talent that otherwise would go waste just on account of that morbid capitalistic thinking.

“I am proud to say that the youngsters we have trained have won laurels in national and international contests. They are serving in the relevant organisations at all levels”, he said.

He stressed the fact that these children were being groomed free of cost because they could not afford to go to trendy schools where they would be taught performing arts as part of the school curriculum. Yet, he asserted that their talent was no less.

As a tailpiece, the information minister took a stinging swipe at his political opponents and said that they were just capitalising on trivial incidents here and there to discredit the Pakistan Peoples Party government. He said that it was the PPP that had brought normalcy to Karachi and had once again made the city safe for the citizens.

The competition was held for two categories: the 14-20 age group, and the 21-29 age group. The walls of the venue had paintings and photographs of every kind. In particular, there were breathtaking photographs of Pakistan, one of them showing a splendid scene of the fabled lake Saiful Maluk in Kaghan. Similarly, there were paintings (oil-on-canvas) of idyllic landscapes.