To create awareness on the issue of child labor and raise funds to help street kids, the Children’s Rights Organization held a conference and exhibition of children’s drawings at the Iranian Academy of Arts on December 29-30.
The conference focused on involvement in volunteerism and philanthropy and was originally organized to coincide with the International Volunteer Day (Dec 5) but was later rescheduled, ISNA reported.
The keynote speech of the conference was delivered by Dr. Hassan Ashayeri, professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at the Tehran University of Medical Science, who underlined the importance of volunteer work, saying “volunteers should not hesitate to lend a helping hand when and where it is needed. Rather they should let love and passion for what they do to drive them in their volunteering activities.”
A shadow play directed by Hani Salehi depicting the story of Zahhak, an evil figure in Iranian mythology, was preformed as part of the program for children.
Around 70 watercolor and pastel drawings of volunteer children were also displayed in the academy’s ‘Khyal-e-Now’ (New Dream) gallery. Selected paintings were offered for sale and the money will be used to help street kids by the Children’s Rights Organization, an NGO, founded in 1995 as an autonomous non-governmental, nonprofit body. Its main objective is to facilitate the promotion, implementation and monitoring of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a universal human rights declaration which sets out the civil, political, economic and social and health and cultural rights of children.
The Iranian Academy of Arts was founded in 1999 to preserve the national and Islamic cultural and artistic heritage, and to propose policies and strategies to promote Islamic culture.
