TEHRAN -- The Damonfar Company, the Iranian representative of France’s Pebeo, and Germany’s Faber-Castell, two companies that manufacture art materials, plan to offer art courses for Tehran kindergarten teachers during the next Iranian calendar year, which begins on March 21.

“Training a mentor means teaching tens of thousands of children,” Damonfar Managing Director Seifollah Puya-Rad told the Mehr News Agency on Tuesday.

“I think that art education can help our children in their future lives. It is better to let them reveal the things that are in their minds,” he added.

Damonfar was the first private sector company to sponsor an art show in Iran -- the First Visual Arts Festival, which was held at Tehran’s Niavaran Cultural Center last summer. It plans to hold the festival biennially.

“To be frank, at first, I had two goals in holding the festival: advertising activities and contributing to young artists. However, advertising activities were ignored shortly after the festival began… and all efforts were concentrated on supporting the youth in visual arts, which was also a kind of advertising for us,” Puya-Rad said.

Puya-Rad expects the Iranian government to facilitate participation of private sector companies in artistic events.

“The sector needs no red carpet to participate in artistic events… They do not want to face problems in getting licenses for their artistic activities and state-run cultural institutes can refrain from charging rent for the shows sponsored by the private sector,” he noted.

The company also held workshops in several Iranian cities last year.