More than 100 children aged three to 17 came to the free art sessions at the Camp John Hay Manor last Sunday.

The event which will be done weekly for the next few weeks to develop new creatives in the city was part of the city’s celebration of the National Children’s month and spearheaded by the City Social Welfare Development Office under head Liza Bulayungan.

“It will be a big event with many active partners, government and non-government,” said councilor Leandro Yangot, Jr., who is the lead artist-art workshop facilitator. Other agencies which supported the event are the Department of Interior and Local Government and the National Bureau of Investigation with the management of The Manor at CJHG as partner.

Yangot said that the workshops will be done weekly with local artists as facilitators at a separate venue later on like the Burnham Park children’s playground which was used in earlier similar workshops.

The children will be taught to paint using acrylic and watercolor as medium with the bests to be chosen and will be part of an exhibit middle of December at the Manor.

The new workshop had newcomers as well as participants of the earlier workshops facilitated by Hermie Bruno, with Baguio Educators Artist Group members John Lee Cayso and Leslee Chomawin.

The Manor event saw Heroes Wall of Fame artists Gladys Labsan and Ged Alangui joining after requests from Yangot for them to join due to beef up the facilitating team with most of the BEAG busy with their higher education pursuit.

With its success, Yangot looks forward to more artistic events in the future.

He said: “The OCSWD under Liza Daisa Bulayungan together with our creative partners (public as well as private) will schedule more creative programs for our children. We shall also continue with our free guitar/ukulele/voice (music) lessons which we started last year at the Sunshine Park. And we might as well continue teaching our youth the art of urban gardening and cooking advocacies with we started six years ago.” Pigeon Lobien