Dubai: More than 500 orphans and minor children in the UAE will benefit from a new cultural initiative launched at Al Jalila Cultural Centre for Children in collaboration with Enoc Group.
The three-year programme will support children through a number of art workshops that will focus on reorienting children’s psychological and emotional needs.
Enoc Group signed an agreement with the centre on Sunday pledging full sponsorship of the programme, which comes as part of the centre’s wider ‘A Gesture of Goodwill’ campaign that has been able to accommodate the needs of many underprivileged children, orphans and minors during the past year.
Dr Mona Al Bahar, Executive Director of Al Jalila Cultural Centre for Children, said that the centre has noticed a need for more programmes that incentivise the youth to express their feelings and emotions through art.
“We have found that theatre, music, arts and crafts play a major role in the development of these kids and in building their personalities,” she said. Through this collaboration, we will be able to provide children several art workshops that can help them in discovering the artists within them,” she said.
Dr Al Bahar said that Enoc Group pledged over $300,000 (Dh1.1 million) to the centre, which will have local and international specialists initiating and supervising the workshops for the next three years.
The programme, she added, has been designed to include all kids between the ages of 4 to 16, but will mainly focus on orphan kids coming from the Family Village. Through the workshops, children will be able to reflect their personalities, while reinforcing fundamental concepts such as family and sense of belonging
“In previous visits of orphan children to our centre, we saw that these kids face some sort of emotional challenges. They have difficulties focusing among other issues,” she said. “In coordination with the programme management at the centre, we have looked into how we can develop special therapeutic programmes that can help them overcome these challenges.”
Dr Al Bahar also pointed out that giving the opportunity for orphan children to come to the centre has helped children mingle with other children their age and learn from them. “This way they feel that they are part of society.”
Saif Humaid Al Falasi, Group CEO, Enoc, said they hope that through their support they will be able to transform the lives of young children to ensure their ability to achieve long-term success and help in shaping a well-rounded character.
“We believe that giving the opportunity of knowledge for our children is very important to us and to the UAE. Our participation has a long-term objective and we will continue to extend our programme based on its success,” he said. “We will be monitoring it on a quarterly basis and modifying it based on the needs of the children.”
