The joy of painting graffiti on a wall is a rare experience that 20 Telkom employees and their children enjoyed – legally and for a good cause – this past weekend.
“Ja, it feels good! My inner child is getting out!” said technical officer Thokozile Makhubela, who took part in a graffiti workshop organised by the Telkom Art Collection on Saturday morning.
Her 11-year-old daughter Mbali was equally delighted to be painting graffiti. “I am really enjoying the painting, the passion and everything here.”
By “here”, she meant the Maria Kloppers Children’s Home, where the group from Telkom connected with the children living at the home and gave their time to help make a difference to their lives.
Working side by side with teenagers from the home, they used cans of spray paint to transform a plain white wall surrounding the home’s swimming pool into a work of art, ablaze with colourful, cartoon-like characters.
“It’s an amazing experience,” said Sydney van der Reijden, who attended the workshop with his son Liam. “The great thing is that we are contributing in a way that we can see and remember; we can always come back and look at what we have created.”
This was the second Saturday in a row that Sydney, Thokozile and other Telkom volunteers spent mastering the art of graffiti. On the previous Saturday, 8 October, two graffiti artists, Rasty and Kyle, taught them the basics of graffiti, including spray painting techniques and can control. Armed with this experience, the employees were then asked to facilitate at a second workshop, this time for teenagers – their own and those living at the Maria Kloppers Children’s Home.
The graffiti project, which is part of the Telkom Art Collection’s annual art education programme, will be registered for the Carry the Telkom Flame initiative. This means that the time employees spent on the graffiti project will count towards their 20 hours of service for Carry the flame.