If I Had the Chance...Artwork from the Streets of Asia and the Pacific

Abstract

Children, Youth and Environments Vol. 14 No. 2 (2004) ISSN: 1546-2250 If I Had the Chance...Artwork from the Streets of Asia and the Pacific Asian Development Bank, (2003). Manila, Philippines: Asian Development Bank; 111 pages. $90. ISBN 9715615033. Anyone concerned about young people, especially community and development workers and teachers, will find If I Had the Chance… Artwork from the Streets of Asia and the Pacific of interest. The book is packed full of drawings and statements bystreet children between the ages of five and 16, revealing their aspirations for the future. It provides an insight into the lives of young people. For westerners, it is a glimpse of life in Asia that is generally hidden from view. The book is the result of competitions organized by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), held in 2002 in seven cities in Asia and the Pacific (including Dhaka, Jakarta, Kathmandu, Manila, Phnom Penh, Port Moresby and Ulaanbaatar). The competitions lasted two hours and involved more that 1,000 young street children. Each child was given a16”x16” sheet of paper, 48 crayons and 24 oil pastels and asked to draw on the theme “If I had the chance, I would…”. The aim was to create a publication, together with a calendar and greetings cards, to provide a voice for young people and to show their wishes for the future. The children voiced their fears about drugs, wars, religion, terrorism, corruption, absent fathers, bombing, conflict and abuse. Their wishes were for food, homes, medical care, education, play and parks. They wanted to be social workers, teachers, doctors as well as footballers, pilots, journalists, policemen and computer engineers. One child said that he would not like to live and die on the streets. The competition jury is identified, as are the organizations who participated and the children who contributed to the book. It is not clear who edited the publication, but the designers are identified as /DOUBLESLASH/ and the ADB Office of External 300 Relations. The book uses a simple and effective format - a large, square book of 112 color pages. On every page are beautiful drawings or photographs and well written extended captions. The drawings are a delight, with different kinds of drawing systems used to good effect. The graphic design is excellent and shows sensitivity and skill in the selection, presentation and positioning of the drawings. These are contextualized by photographs of the children together with further explanation of their experiences and ideas. ADB states that they annually produce over 50 current title son economics, the environment, social issues, and other sectors in order to increase awareness and understanding of the bank’s activities, strategies, and objectives, and to introduce the public to what the organization has been doing. In PR terms, this book is a winner. It is a beautiful coffee table book that cries out to be picked up, handled and viewed. It is big, colorful, with strong visual impact and presence. It shows that young people’s ideas and efforts are valued and celebrated. It has that caring, sharing feel about it. It is more likely to be read in this format than if it were presented in the form of an academic sociological study. The book is compelling. The reader is first engaged by the drawings, whose captions convey the children’s hopes and aspirations, and begin to make the reader think about what is important to young people. Then photographs of the children and reports from interviews with them expand the ideas explored in the drawings and flesh out some of the children’s backgrounds. I found myself reading it from cover to cover. I found myself talking about it to other people. I found myself comparing the experiences of children in my own country and wondering what kind of drawings and ideas they would have produced in response to the same theme. Similar publications have been produced by Peace Child International, showing how young people from many cultures envision their future. In Visions of the Future: Why We Need to Teach for Tomorrow (Trentham Books 1995), David Hicks and 301 Catherine Holden quote Whitaker(1995) in suggesting that “successful education is more about vision, ambition...