Rangoon Art Exhibition to Help Education in Chin State
11 July 2012: A group of seven artists organized an art exhibition in Rangoon last week in an effort to raise fund to help improve education in southern parts of Chin State, Burma.
The exhibition held at the Armanthit Art Gallery from June 30 to July 4 featuring a total of 61 paintings on Chin traditional costumes and landscapes of Burma’s northwestern region raised about 2.3million kyats.
Half of the proceeds obtained from the event would be used for the development of education in Mindat, Kanpetlet and Matupi towns under the supervision of ‘Sar Mee Eain’, an education charity organization run in Chin State by a teacher, Ko Tin Ko Lin, according to the Myanmar Times.
A five-day exhibition named ‘Natmataung’ in Burmese, also known as Khonumthung in Chin and Mount Victoria in English, was arranged in the former capital after the artists travelled to Chin State at the invitation of Ko Tin Ko Lin in March this year.
Talking about a trip made with his friends, Tun Kyaw, Win Kyi, Kyaw Swar Thant, Win Thaw, Than Soe and Hla Tun Aung, one of the artists, Kyaw Nyunt, admitted the poor situation of the region, adding: “The idea of the exhibition came after the journey.”
With only 14.91 percent of students passing the matriculation examination for the 2011-12 academic year, Chin State stood at the lowest among Burma’s 14 states and divisions in the June results announcement.
In a report published last year by the UNDP, Chin State was named the poorest in the whole country of Burma, with more than 70 percent of its population under the poverty line.
Reporting by Thawng Zel Thang
[email protected]