Ever since its inception in 2014, Art For Causes (AFC), an NGO that promotes arts and raises funds to support significant social causes such as healthcare and education for the underprivileged, has come up with interesting charity programmes every year. This year too, AFC founder Amita Talwar and team have come up with an event that is sure to mesmerise both art and music lovers.
“We were racking our brains to come up with innovative ideas for the charity event when my friend and singer Vidya Shah gave us this idea of paying tribute to the legendary Begum Akhtar. Vidya along with actor Danish Husain conceptualised the entire show,” says Amita, adding, “As Vidya is a student of Begum Akhtar’s senior most disciple Shanti Hiranand, she has great knowledge of music. I am sure they will bring alive the life and times of Begum Akhtar through the performance. Additionally, the performance will be enriched with anecdotes in beautiful Urdu and songs ghazals, dadra and film songs that were made popular by Akhtar.”
Vidya Shah
The event “A Tribute to Begum Akhtar” will be held on August 12 and senior artist T. Vaikuntam will inaugurate the art exhibition, followed by the concert. Some of the paintings and multimedia prints on display at the venue have been specially created for the event by Amita Talwar herself, and are an unusual combination of photographs and paintings merged together. Apart from that, the exhibition will also have artworks done by Sushma Thota.
All proceeds from the event will go to support brilliant students from underprivileged backgrounds. “We are always identifying brilliant and meritorious students and giving them vocational training. We believe in the fundamental and basic right to education and its impact in building a responsible citizenry,” explains Amita, adding, “AFC began its intervention in low-income private schools in collaboration with Teach for India at Hyderabad to arrest drop-outs in primary and secondary grades. While working with the children, AFC identified the need for imparting broader skill sets to empower the secondary grade students with employable opportunities. With this, AFC will begin its intervention in the thematic area of school-to-work transition.”
