Local youths highlight child labour

Large scale murals form part of the project, which has been developed in conjunction with Amnesty International at Eden Arts at Pilots Row Community Centre over recent months.

Edel Pritchard, Youth Worker at the youth club, said the young people themselves came up with the ideas to make the murals.

“They came up with the designs and they did all the research on the facts surrounding the young people.

“They couldn’t believe what they found and wanted to raise awareness,” Edel added.

The youth club participated in weekly sessions and then went to The Playhouse and learned how to do stencilling and graffiti arts with talented local artists Donal O’Doherty and Karl Porter from UV Arts.

The group took part in label art, before tackling a gable wall in the Bishop Street area, followed by public artworks at Kells Walk in the Bogside area.

The project was timed to mark Amnesty International’s ‘Write for Rights Day.’

Edel said it was amazing to see the final work created and even when we there, and that there had been a lot of interest in the subject matter, even during the creation of the art works.

On one wall at Kells Walk, the young people stencilled the important message behind the project: “This mural was designed by youth from Pilots Row Youth Club to raise awareness of child labour within the fashion industry, to educate and promote the basic human rights of children across the world.

“In Association with Amnesty International, Eden Place Arts Centre and UV Arts, participants had the opportunity to reflect on the true cost of our throw-away fashion industry and created this thought provoking mural.

“Children should be playing not working.”