Sipcot Area – Community Environmental Monitors

Pollution impacted children speak out using art

By sacemPosted on Posted in Media Stories, updates

Chennai, August 18, 2005: School children from two pollution impacted villages Sangolikuppam and Semmankuppam in SIPCOT industrial estate, Cuddalore, today visited Chennai to participate in an art exhibition displaying their paintings. The young artists interacted with about 300 children from Chennai schools. The exhibition is coorganised by Nature Quest and Community Environmental Monitoring and aims at bringing together the city children and the children from the impacted communities to engage in a discussion on pollution. “The community children have expressed a great deal through their paintings and we wanted to bring them down to help the city children understand what it is to live near a chemical factory”, said Prema a volunteer for Nature Quest.

The paintings were a result of a two day workshop conducted by Boldsow, a young artist from the Cholamandalam Artist Village. “The message against pollution is communicated using non toxic media. We used no toxic paints in our work, just red mud, charcoal and recycled handmade paper” said Blodsow.

The images in the paintings depicted a whole cross section of social and environmental issues the children face living next to chemical facilities. Residents of SIPCOT Cuddalore have been battling with industrial pollution for the past 20 years. The industries have ravaged the land, air and water in the area. The residents have called for a ban on the setting up of new polluting or water intensive industries in Cuddalore.

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Pollution impacted children speak out using art
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