- January 22, 2015
- Posted by: Faith Associates
- Categories: Charity, Blog, Leadership
Children with life-limiting conditions joined forces with high school pupils to create a lasting legacy of artwork.
A wooden mural tree surrounded by animals will now take permanent pride of place at the Safe Play Centre in Preston.
It has been created by students from Preston Muslim Girls High School (PMGHS), who have worked with children from The Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity, an organisation that cares for families with a child who has a life-threatening or terminal illness.
The artwork was designed with input from staff at the Safe Play Centre, which provides a multi-sensory environment for children and adults with special needs.
Centre managing director Claire Jones said: “Connecting was organised by Zahida Hanif the art teacher at Preston Muslim Girls High whom Safe Play has links with.
“In the past, girls from the school have volunteered at Safe Play in order to learn more about the disabled community.”
Claire said: “This project has been thought about for over a year. Zahida and I are very passionate about young people understanding their community and felt that the girls from would benefit from learning a bit more about people with disabilities and the people who visit Safe Play would benefit from their artwork.
“The idea of nature came around by likening local community to a tree – the tree being the base and all the different wildlife connecting within that base just like people from different backgrounds and with different needs connecting within their community.
“Safe Play was involved in the first design session of the project – the girls from PMGHS, came and saw the space on the wall where the artwork will be, chatted to me about various disabilities and needs and how they can be likened to nature. For example we have lots of mums with babies visit; the girls thought a bird feeding her chicks in the nest was reflective of those visitors.
“Children from Rainbow Trust who visit Safe Play Centre regularly helped on this design afternoon too, designing and colouring pictures of wildlife alongside the young ladies from PMGH.”
Source: Lancashire Evening Post
