Three months, 30 disadvantaged kids, eight cameras, 49 photographs, 29 paintings, some fun and ample creativity. This is how kids from three city slums define ‘Get framed’, an exhibition which will display their art works this Saturday.

“To train kids who have not held a camera before wasn’t an easy job,” said Aaboo K Varghese, director, Faithworks India, a networking branch of Oasis India, an organisation that works with under-privileged children and women.

The idea behind the exhibition was to give children from poor backgrounds an opportunity to learn a new skill and to creatively express themselves through an art form. Water, faces, and community, were the themes on which the kids clicked pictures.

To assist them, volunteers conducted training sessions to teach them basic photography skills, and initiating them on handling and using digital cameras.

“Initially, we had difficulty in getting the children to interpret the themes. For water, they would go and click the Mithi River close to their home,” said Esther Drihem, a French woman who volunteered her time for the training sessions. “After a few sessions, they tried throwing pebbles in the river and would capture the splash.”

“I took a photograph at Bandstand where the image of a building was reflected in the sea. It’s my favourite,” said 13-year-old Mayuri Chavhan, a resident of Dyaneshwar Nagar slums in Bandra East.

The exhibition raise funds through sale of the photographs and paintings, as well as an auction of the winning photographs. It will be held this Saturday at Zenzi, Bandra, between 4.30pm and 7pm.