"Hapag
ng Pag-asa" by Joey Velasco dubbed as "Do This in
Memory of Me" won the Best Billboard in
the recent Catholic Mass Media Awards held at the RCBC Theatre
Ayala, Makati City.
It is his tribute to Pugad Home for Street Children and Migrant Youth.
Don Bosco Pugad: Home for Street Children and Migrant Youth highlights their
shining resiliency through sharing in difficult times. The center believes
that street life has always been dangerous and damaging to their frail lives
and the power of sharing serves as their main strength and source of survival.
Don Bosco Pugad featured the different stories of the street children in its
journey towards love for truth and sensitivity to children’s rights,
the phenomenon of their hunger, suffering and abandonment.
The artist painter, Mr. Joey Velasco, a graduate of Don Bosco Seminary on the other hand, walks the same path. The artwork is the product of his experiential encounters and personal dialogues with them as well as the artist’s spiritual inspiration of having a heart to share in the suffering children—not for art’s sake! The artist sees these children sharing in the Last Supper of Christ and he sees Christ partaking in the street corner meal of the street children that could perhaps be their last.
This powerful portrayal of the “Last Supper” highlights the street children as the privileged people in the banquet of Christ who ironically at our present time, suffer the pangs of hunger due to social insensitivity or peoples’ lack of willingness to share. It calls not only for spiritual revolution but above all, a social moral regeneration where the message is loud and clear, regarding the poor and the abandoned.
The depiction of the street children’s last meal and Christ’s Last Supper enshrined together brings out a vivid paradoxical call for all to share when it means saving the lives of poor children. Don Bosco Pugad revives and advocates the spirit of sharing in Christ’s very words “Do This In Memory of Me…” more >>>
