Fundraising for SOS Village kids: Watercolor, drawing workshops

A watercolor and drawing workshop will be held on Saturday (August 25) at SM City as a fundraising event for the SOS Children’s Village in Cebu City.

For a workshop fee of P800, the topics will cover color mixing, watercolor washes, and doodling people and animals. The materials may be borrowed from Faber-Castell Philippines at the venue.

Batch 1 is scheduled from 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., while Batch 2 will be from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. To join the workshop, one has to log on to bit.ly/watercolorcebu, or call Babelyn Cabalar at cp No. 0998-581-1487.

SOS Children’s Village is an independent, nongovernment international development organization that has been working to meet the needs and protect the interests and rights of children since 1949. It was founded by Hermann Gmeiner in Imst, Austria.

In Cebu, this village— opened in 1982 at Barangay Talamban— consists of 12 family houses, the village director’s house, a community center, and a library.

The smaller children are looked after at the SOS Kindergarten, which has six group rooms and is open to children from the neighborhood.

An SOS Youth Facility is affiliated to the project. Older boys from the SOS Children’s Village normally move to the facility when they start a vocational training course or go to higher education.

With the support of qualified youth workers, they develop realistic perspectives for the future, learn to shoulder responsibility and increasingly make their own decisions. They are encouraged to develop team spirit and build up contacts with relatives and friends, as well as with relevant authorities and potential employers.

In 2007, SOS Children’s Villages launched programs intended to support families at risk of abandoning their children and to encourage families to stay together.