If children can’t go see art, the art should come to the children. That’s the principle guiding the Touring Art Museum into remote and underprivileged communities to give hands-on art education to kids with no other access to it. Sponsored by the Jordanian National Gallery of Fine Art, the program is run by its tireless facilitators, director Khalil Al-Majali and painter Suheil Baqaeen, whose mission is “ to increase cultural awareness of plastic and visual arts ” throughout the society.
Every week, they drive a museum van carrying canvases by famous artists and enough art supplies for children to try making their own art. The paintings are often the first that the kids have seen , and the kids—from youth centers, orphanages, refugee camps, rehabilitation and juvenile detention centers—take to the lessons enthusiastically. Since 2009, 197 art tours have visited over 9,500 participants.
Even if only a few children go on to pursue careers in art, Baqaeen says, their work will have been worth it.
