All those streets with abandoned and plastered houses paint a bleak picture. The residents of the Eindhoven neighbourhood of Woensel-West were utterly done with it.
Housing organisation, Trudo, and volunteers, therefore, decided something needed to change. Someone has the idea to paint the wood used to board up the empty houses’ windows. The neighbourhood children were assigned houses they were allowed to paint. The subject – what do you see when you look somewhere inside?
Children first drew their ideas on paper and then painted them out on the empty buildings’ boarded-up windows. And so many scenes were added – red curtains with blue polka dots, a white cat sleeping on a windowsill, Van Gogh sunflowers.
According to Anna Baake, a volunteer in Woensel-West, this project satisfies many aspects. “We cheer things up. But it also makes the streets a little safer. And, it brings people and children together.”
Source: www.studio040.nl
Translator: Chaitali Sengupta, who gives Dutch lessons in Meerhoven. Click here for more info.
Editor: Melinda Walraven
