Bid to create District Six art trust
THE Children’s Art Centre in District Six, the only dedicated art school for children in the City Bowl since 1949, is planning to set up a bursary trust fund to sponsor year-long art lessons for talented children from disadvantaged homes.
Principal Berenice Plato said the school is open to any child who wants to take art lessons from its specialist art teachers, and currently serves 2 500 children from nine schools in the greater District Six area, including the Zonnebloem Boys’ and Girls’ Primary schools, Walmer Estate Primary and High schools, and Harold Cressy High.
The annual school fee is R65 for a primary school pupil and R800 for a high school pupil, exclusively to cover the cost of art materials.
In addition, the Western Cape Education Department provides limited support for administrative costs.
“R800 a year might not sound like a lot, and it only covers the basic art materials, but for many of our budding young artists and their parents – especially those who live in poverty in the townships and commute to school in the city – this is a fortune,” Plato said.
“That’s why we want to set up a mechanism so people who care about art education, who have the means, can sponsor a child for R800 a year.
“We won’t treat it as a handout. It will rather be a reassurance to our students, who have a passion for art and want to carry on with it but can’t afford the fees that they will be able to continue with their lessons.”
The school also needs a minibus to fetch children from their schools on rainy days, because most children walk.
The Children’s Art Centre was established in 1945 by visionary teacher George Veldsman as the only dedicated art school for “non-white children”, and moved several times from its original location in Woodstock until its current location on the Zonnebloem College Estate in 1991.
Cape Times newspaper clippings about the school since the late 1940s still form part of the school’s archive, including stories about the legendary first female teacher, Ursula Reines (born Strydom), dating back to 1961, and a poignant appeal by the staff of the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 1969 to express their “grave concerns” to the then Department of Coloured Affairs to reconsider its decision to close the school. Notable artists such as Lippy Lipschitz, Neville Dubow and Peggy Delport added their signatures to this petition.
For many years The Children’s Art Centre provided art tuition mainly to local children from the District Six, Walmer Estate and Woodstock areas, but today pupils are from as far
‘People who care about art education can sponsor a child for R800 a year’
afield as Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain and Camps Bay.
Students have worked hard over the past few weeks to make arts and crafts for the Zonnebloem Schools Festival this Saturday and thousands of hand-crafted sunflower hats for a Guinness World Record attempt on the day for the Largest Gathering of People Dressed as Sunflowers.
“We appeal to Capetonians to support our festival and to see the art our children have been making,” said Plato.
Ticket are for sale on plankton.mobi or at the door. Find more information on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ ZonnebloemFestCT2018/