Sunday Times 2

How did a child of 12 years from distant Pundaluoya, view 60 years of friendly relations between Sri Lanka and Germany and bring his impressions to his canvas? 

Whether the student was from Pundaluoya, Jaffna, Mount Lavinia or Germany, the teacher’s guidance was necessary to inspire the child’s imagination and open out his skills, said Helga Schafheutle, the organiser of an art exhibition which marked 60 years of diplomatic relations between Sri Lanka and Germany. Participants for the art exhibition were drawn from Pundaluoya Tamil Maha Vidyalaya, Uduvil Girls’ College and St. John’s College, Jaffna, Science College, Mount Lavinia and Fichte Gymanasium in Karlsruhe, Southern Germany.

These children, between the ages of 11-15 from the above schools, at last week’s competitive art exhibition held at the Goethe Cultural Institute were from diverse backgrounds.

To present friendly relations between the two countries, their choice were aspects of culture, nature and development of each country and so we saw dagobas, elephants, tea plantations, men in national costume, even the sitar in many exhibits as representative of Sri Lanka. But these children who have no access to internet facilities had drawn cathedrals, the eagle, cars, machinery, Bavarian dancers and men in western attire to depict Germany. Symbols represented bonds of friendship against a giant 60 in the background and the young artists, who had used their imagination to the maximum, had made their presentations delightfully colourful with the use of chalk, crayons and water colours.

The German students may have accessed the internet as they had in their exhibits even Sinhala and Tamil letters drawn. Popular choice for their drawings however were the Sri Lankan flag with the lion, the map of Sri Lanka and a bright yellow shining sun.

Helga, as the President of the 55-year old Sri Lanka-German Friendship Society decided to organise an event which symbolised the link between the two countries. If the goal is to link to the future, the future is children and this led Helga to organise a children’s art exhibition as a cultural exchange between the two countries. She visited schools such as the Pundaluoya Tamil Maha Vidyalaya and the schools in Jaffna to explain mostly to the teachers as to how they should guide and inspire the children.

But why art? Helga above all, is a teacher and had been privileged to be one of the few women “to be allowed” to become a Principal of a Grammar School in Germany. The posts of Principal of a Grammar School (from Grade 5-AL) were traditionally held by men although this trend Helga says is now changing. In German schools, teaching of Science takes priority but Helga holds art and culture as vital in the school curriculum.

Helga moved to Brussels on retirement and as a single-parent, raised two daughters combining her position as a Principal. Both daughters are Ph.D holders, are married with four sons and are settled in UK when Helga decided to come over to Sri Lanka with the idea of helping deprived mothers like her, to overcome difficulties. 

Instead in Sri Lanka, she found herself training teachers of village schools in the English language in Matugama. Later, a chance meeting with Gowri Mehenthiran of Chinmaya Mission – an organisation for rural development, led her to teach teachers of underprivileged schools in Colombo and Batticaloa during weekends and holidays. In Jaffna, for the first time she trained Montessori teachers getting down the books and material she uses during her training sessions from concerned Germans.

But as the President of the Sri Lanka-German Friendship Society for the past two years, her duties had diversified such as organising art exhibitions such as this.