Anton Lustig 乐安东 Gebu Gampang

Wednesday, 7 September 2011

Posted by Anton Lustig at 05:27

Anton Lustig: Prop Roots Center, Western Mountains, Mangshi, Dehong, China; Artists CAN be part of a society, if their environment is suitable and challenging. Born Dutch, I have spent almost half my life in China, of which many years in villages of the Jingpo ethnicity. Though now fully engaged in art & philosophy and grassroots nonprofit NGO work, given my past linguistic career I can still claim to be the world’s leading expert on the Jingpo’s Zaiwa language. The minority children in the mountain villages in this remote area close to the Burmese border where I live and work, grow up as part of an eroding culture, with low chances for development, and greatly hampered by the rampant availability of DRUGS and HIV/AIDS. Therefore, my wife and I founded the NGO Prop Roots Program, aiming at giving these great children more confidence, through creative and language education and intercultural exchange. We emphasize that these kids have a cultural background to be proud of, and that each of them is unique.   The Prop Roots Children’s Activity, Arts and Culture Center, also our home and studio, lies on a gentle slope in a Jingpo mountain village, and is visited by volunteers, researchers, artists and other guests, apart from, of course, lots of children.

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