01 June 1998

BONN: Johan Nicolas Bollen, a Belgian psychologist and self-taught artist, began to paint as he started working as a volunteer with street children in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Today, four years and 150 paintings later, Bollen continues to use paintbrush and canvas to capture the "human nature" he observes daily as he works with the Honduran NGO "Casa Alianza" to help provide street children with immediate support and long-term alternatives to their precarious situation. Bollen’s painting Crying Child: A Portrait of Poverty for example, reflects the extreme poverty which coupled with physical abuse, often pushes children to seek a new life on the streets. In Bollen’s view, "street children are not delinquents, as they are so often perceived, but rather victims of a family and a social system".

He believes that the relationship between children and adults is permeated by a tendency toward authoritarianism whose most palpable manifestation is the commonplace use of a belt in many households as an instrument of discipline, the belt sadly becoming "a symbol of education". What is essential according to Johan, is for society to change its basic perception toward children. Such a change could help eliminate other social epidemics such as delinquency and juvenile violence. Furthermore, it could be the key to a society-wide regeneration. "Democratic and civic practice begin at the family-level" says Bollen, who is actively engaged in a national campaign against child abuse with the co-operation of governmental agencies and NGOs. No doubt a long and difficult process but one in which this UN Volunteer has faith, as it is "a problem not of what we can do but of what we are willing to do". And as the artist says about his own painting and his daily work "that child is our child. That child is us".