In December 2011 the founder of the foundation, illustrator Maaike Slingerland, has been in Cambodia along with her boyfriend Martijn Bloem. Cambodia is one of Asia ‘s poorest countries, where a gruesome past of the Khmer Rouge regime still plays a big role. Almost everyone has losr a family member or even more in the extermination camps of Pol Pot (1975-1979). In this terrible period also higher educated people, including many artists, were driven to the countryside where they had to work under inhuman conditions, or worse, get killed. As a result, there are now relatively few artists in Cambodia.
When visiting various schools Maaike also noticed that the children had little to no creative classes. In the classrooms, no drawings hung on the walls and the kids were obviously not used to drawing and thus to developing their creativity in drawing. Because of this lack of creative education, it is difficult for the children not to follow in the footsteps of their parents that often lead a hard life as a hardworking farmer.
With this realization Maaike decided she wanted to do something. In the Netherlands she also gives illustration workshops for disadvantaged children, and now she also wanted to do that in Cambodia.
Within a short time, a professional management team formed the foundation and several consultants and volunteers helped to make this project possible.
The first series of workshops are taking place now Cambodia. In the coming years Colours4Children will continue the mission in other developing countries to introduce creative development to as many children as possible and to stimulate their imagination and visualization capability, thereby giving them more opportunities for their future.