With a track record of impactful work for children for over 40 year, CRY has also worked with progressive artists to raise funds. Here are some inspiring highlights.

Launched in 2014, PhotoSparks is a weekly feature from YourStory, with photographs that celebrate the spirit of creativity and innovation. In the earlier 550 posts, we featured an art festival, cartoon gallery. world music festival, telecom expo, millets fair, climate change expo, wildlife conference, startup festival, Diwali rangoli, and jazz festival.

CRY (Child Rights and You) partnered with online gallery TheCurators.Art for the recent art fundraiser called ‘Happy Childhoods.’ The artworks were also displayed at Mumbai’s Tao Art Gallery (see Part I of our photo essay here).

With children as the theme, the artworks by 45 renowned artists were priced from Rs 25,000 to Rs 4.5 lakh. With permission from the organisers, images of some of the artworks are republished in this two-part photo essay. See also our earlier coverage of Tao Art Gallery exhibitions and curator interviews here.

Art for impact

“Over the past 42 years, we have worked across 23 states, 157 districts, 3,396 remote villages and urban slums, trying to get to ‘the last child’ – the child that development has forgotten,” Ratan Batliboi, Chairman, Board of Trustees, CRY, writes in the exhibition booklet.

This includes children in geographically remote areas, children of tribal communities, children of commercial sex workers, children in conflict areas, and children from underserved and marginalised areas of India.

“The artworks bring joy to the collectors who take them home with an invaluable feeling of having made a difference. They also serve as a contribution to the beneficiaries of the NGO,” explains Sapna Kar, Co-Founder of TheCurators.Art, in a chat with YourStory.