It has been impossible for fifth-grader Tseng Wei-ting (曾偉婷), an aspiring artist, to take lessons in painting outside of school because of her family's financial difficulties.
But thanks to the "Little Van Gogh" charity program organized by the Taipei Youth Recreation Center and the Taipei City Government, she has been able to receive free fine art lessons, and may have a chance to visit the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands.
Underpriviledged
PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES
The program sponsored 60 elementary school students, whose disadvantaged background prevented them from developing their talent in fine arts, to attend an eight-day summer camp with painting courses, outdoor sketching activities and opportunities to meet famous artists, including well-known sculptor Ju Ming (朱銘).
"I like painting very much, and I've learned a lot of skills during the camp ? I appreciate this opportunity because my parents can't afford to send me to painting lessons," Tseng told the Taipei Times, adding that she loved landscape paintings the most.
Investment
Chen Kuan-lu (
In addition to holding exhibitions of the kids' works around the country next month, the program will select 30-40 paintings to be exhibited in the Van Gogh Museum in September, and three kids will have a chance to visit the museum in Holland, he said.
Taipei City Education Department Commissioner Wu Ching-ji (
"We don't want our kids to be bookworms, and hopefully this kind of program can encourage their talents in the arts," he said.
Participating in the program, Tseng said, not only helped her to gain some painting skills, it had boosted her confidence.
"I want to be a painter in the future. I will try very hard to carry out my dream," she said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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