We, at ‘The Talking Canvas’ are very committed and passionate about our mission. Our mission is to inspire and empower as many kids as possible through art. We do this by using kids artwork as designs on apparel and also by giving back in the form of art materials and art education for underprivileged kids. We work closely with a couple of not-for-profit organisations and would like to convert the ones who have similar belief as us, to a more continuous collaboration and partnership. Shining Stars Football Club is one such not-for-profit organisations which is a community based skills development program run by PASS Collective. PASS’ Design Studio funds the Shining Stars FC program. Anusha, our Founder met Shaona Sen, co-founder of PASS at a business event and they instantly connected. They soon met and what was common was their love for creativity, design and their belief that design will shape the world. What was even better was that both believed in working with kids and instilling creativity and design sense early on.
Shining Stars FC works with girls and boys from marginalised communities of Bangalore. The program focuses on football excellence on the pitch, which, they believe, inevitably leads to gender equality, teamwork, leadership and communication skills development. When not playing football, the children apply teamwork in local community-based design projects to take on local leadership and change their surroundings. We were completely in awe of the good work they are doing and decided to collaborate.
We believe that creativity is a continuous process and hence, it’s important to stretch the young minds to their limits when it comes to exploring their own creativity! When we decided to launch our football collection ahead of the world cup excitement, we ran a ‘Football Fever’ competition where we invited kids to donate their football related artwork and one talented winner would get an exciting gift box. We were quite overwhelmed with the artwork we got from children across the country. Kids from the Shining Stars FC participated with great enthusiasm and we were impressed with many of the artworks we got from them. We were also thrilled when our internal jury selected Rahul Tony, a 14 year old from Shining Stars FC as the winner of the gift box. Pradish, a 10 year old of Shining Stars FC designed a beautiful Golden Boot drawing and he was also given his a T-shirt with his artwork.
Shaona says “We are quite excited to collaborate with The Talking Canvas given the brand’s commitment to visually capturing a child’s imagination and sharing through the self-expressiveness form of apparel. Meeting The Talking Canvas team shortly before the FIFA World Cup season has been quite timely!”
Anusha says, “Shaona and the team have done some brilliant work with these kids in a short span of time. I was impressed with her design experience and how she was sharing her knowledge of creative process with Shining Stars FC program children. We are excited to be working with Shining Stars FC and meeting these kids face to face was such an awesome experience”.
Future on how we can work together
Shining Stars Football Club and The Talking Canvas are glad to be working together! Rohan Raj Pradhan, program Coordinator of Shining Stars FC says, “In the future, we look forward to collaborate with The Talking Canvas on setting up T-shirt graphic design workshops in which children and youth in the program can understand different types of design and creative livelihoods”. We would love for the talented youths to be placed into internships and jobs in The Talking Canvas.