The 7th World Children’s Festival (WCF) on the National Mall across from the U.S. Capitol from July 25 to July 27, 2026, will also serve as a national children’s celebration of America’s 250th Anniversary. Produced every four years by the International Child Art Foundation (ICAF) as the “Olympics” of children’s imagination, the WCF offers students a transformative experience that sharpens their creativity and instills mutual empathy.

The WCF kicks off on July 25 with Health & Environment Day, so that common interests and shared visions can scaffold mutual empathy. On the following Creativity & Imagination Day, young artists will imagine the unimaginable by co-producing an artwork for NASA’s first human mission to Mars. The artwork will be titled “Children’s Earth Flag.” On the final Peace & Leadership Day, young artists will collaborate to create a large mural as a tribute to America on its 250th birthday.

Free and open to the public, the WCF is expected to attract between 10,000 and 30,000 attendees, primarily from the greater Washington, D.C. area. While attendees can watch multicultural performances, attend workshops or participate in hands-on activities, the WCF’s intervention focuses on its delegates, the selected visual and performing artists. Accompanied by parents and schoolteachers, the delegates represent their school districts or countries at the WCF and number approximately 2,000.

ICAF selects the visual artists through its school art program, the Arts Olympiad. Students typically view themselves and their peers as jocks, nerds, techies, artsy or similar limiting identities. ICAF uses art as a dynamic activity to augment identity development, build character and broaden students’ perspectives on themselves and others. By combining art with sports, the Arts Olympiad inspires students to embrace the “artist-athlete ideal” of the creative mind and healthy body (mente sana in corpore sano). The structured lesson plans teach students that the mind and body reflect each other since one’s state of mind can have epigenetic effects.

By awakening the dormant “inner artist” or the slumbering “inner athlete,” students can reframe their identity as “artist-athletes.” Self-representation as artist-athletes in their artwork solidifies their revised identity. As artist-athletes grow in number, their school becomes a more integrated, healthy community, and their town or city can become a creative cluster. Because of the national significance of ICAF’s initiatives, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has granted ICAF an exclusive license to use the Arts Olympiad mark.

ICAF selects the performing artists through an online application process that provides selected performers an opportunity to showcase their talents on the “World Stage” that ICAF sets up on the National Mall for the WCF.

Your school can participate in the 2026 WCF by:

1. Conducting the 7th Arts Olympiad for students aged 8 to 12 to empower them to overcome the “fourth-grade slump” in creativity, which was discovered by E. Paul Torrance, the “father” of modern creativity. The Arts Olympiad Lesson Plan requires two or three class sessions.
2. Encourage your school’s performing artists aged 8 to 20 to apply to perform at the World Children’s Festival. Please watch this music clip to learn more.
3. You can also apply to host a workshop or activity at the WCF.

If you are interested but time-constrained, you can contact ICAF to request an extension of the March 20th deadline.

A national charity incorporated in the District of Columbia in April 1997, ICAF serves American children as their national arts organization, fostering their creativity and building empathy among them for “a more perfect union” and with their peers worldwide for a peaceful future.