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Aside from wiggling away, Baloo and his buddies have been busy collecting canned goods for charity and supporting artistic initiatives.
Baloo’s Just One Can appeal collected more than 250 donations and distributed them to the Bahrain Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (BSPCA), Bahrain Animal Rescue Centre (BARC), Askar Dumped Dogs and ResCat.
They will be continuing the appeal until June 30 due to the Covid-19 issue.
Sarah added: “Also, @baloosbuddies at @RIAcenter is well known in Bahrain for staging large scale, inclusive and collaborative art events to raise awareness about autism. Unfortunately, this year we weren’t able to host a public art event for April, which is Autism Awareness month, due to the ongoing Covid-19 situation.”
As an alternative, Sarah set up Arty’s Art Challenge, helped by Rekha Salin, who has done some fabulous illustrations for her. Each Wednesday, Sarah posted a theme on Instagram and Facebook related to autism and invited people to express the theme creatively through their art, whatever their age or artistic ability.
“It’s been fabulous to see how the austism themes have been interpreted each week,” said Christine Gordon, co-founder of RIA Institute Bahrain. “My children, Othmann and Mary, have taken part too. It keeps them occupied during the school closure and is very therapeutic for Othmann who finds painting very relaxing. We hope that by reading about autism each week and being creative, people will have more of an understanding of autism and acceptance of children and adults on the autism spectrum”
If you’ve missed Arty’s Art Challenge, you can still read about it on Instagram @baloosbuddies. Don’t forget to post your artwork with the hashtag #artys_art_challenge so that Baloo can see it and share it too.
