Six-year-old Margarita Hovakimyan¹s contribution to a recent exhibition and auction in Yerevan was a painting of a tall girl with short black ahir, a blue skirt and long red legs. Margarita, who also has short black hair, as well as a contagious smile

"In her pictures, she always draws girls with long red legs. The red stand for the pain that she always experiences in her legs," said Ani Avagyan, her pediatric psychologiost, about Margarita¹s painting. "And the long legs stand for healthy legs that are Margarita¹s dream."

World Vision Armenia co-sponsored the exhibition and auction recently at Pail Holding, a private artt gallery on Marshal Baghramyan Street. The paintings were the creations of children from the National Center of Aesthetics (NCA) and children with special needs included in WV Armenia¹s Children Inclusive Eucation Development Program (CIEDP)

The money raised at the auction will help to maintain art therapy classes for children with special needs who attend World Vision Armenia¹s Children Inclusion Center. "It will enable children with special needs to heal through art therapy and will establish a center in Armenia that will interest everybody," said Smavel Bagdasaryan, the head of the NCA.

About 100 people, including different local and international NGO representatives, special educators, parents and children came to celebrate the victory of the human spirit through art and tell the world that every child is talented.

"It is a great pleasure to see what our partners are doing together with WV Armenia¹s CIED program staff, "said David Thomson, WV Armenia national director. "Art is an incredible thing. People sometimes find it difficult to talk, but they can express themselves through paintings. And, for this wonderful occasion, we owe the children who made this event possible for us."

The next day of the exhibition, a roundtable workshop was held for special educators to exchange ideas on art therapy implementation in the kindergartens for preschool children with special needs.

"These kinds of events give people the possibility to change the stereotypical view towards children with special needs, and it opens a forgotten window to their abilities and possibilities. I hope that this workshop will provide the specialists with a clear vision about how to further assist these children in the process of discovering their abilities and possibilities," said Karen Harutyunyan, a pediatric psychologist from Fund For Armenian Relief.