The writing out last session started with a complete review of all the previous work done and the participants were asked to come up with any problems or clarifications they might have from the previous sessions.
After this Nargis and I distributed new notebooks to all the participants and they were asked to use this as a fair copy to write down all their poems they have written so far and also add any new ones they might write within this period. These poems were to be collected a month later and archived at the Kalam office and one poem from each of the participant was to be used in publishing a journal of their poems.
The participants were at this point grouped into pairs and then asked to write a poem about their partners describing him or her using the five senses as learnt in the previous sessions of Writing out.
The result was an eclectic mix. We saw participants like Bharati describing Ruksana as her long lost childhood friend whose touch was like that of the new born baby and smelt like the fresh dew of the morning. Others like Basudeb took a more hilarious approach describing Mehmood as a “Juhi flower” and smelling like freshly made kachoris (anyone who knows Mehmood would understand the hilarity of the description) ofcourse in my opinion I would say Chandni took the cake when she was paired with me and decided to describe me as a football player with eyes like those of a cat!
The poems were all discussed and then Nargis and I made some suggestions and asked them to make changes wherever necessary or to just add some more details. The participants at the end of the session said that it had been a rewarding experience as they had always felt writing poetry was meant for the “others” but now they were confident that even they could write a nice poem.
We ended the session urging them to continue writing and to complete the new notebook and contact us as soon as possible so that we could start the process of organizing a community program and getting the journal published. All in all the program ended with quite a success with many of them acquiring the interest towards writing and in the honing of their analytical and observation skills.
June 30, 2008
June 28, 2008
The Week that Was
The week started off rather badly and affected me more than I thought it would. After having been promised a meeting at Crossword Bookstore, I went there all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed hoping that I would be able to sit down and discuss what Writeherewritenow was all about with the Marketing Manager of Crossword.
What I thought would be a half an hour meeting turned out to be a twenty second meeting, with the Marketing Manager telling me that they "only organise stuff during holidays". When I politely inquired as to whether they have events on Saturdays and Sundays,she said that they did and asked me to "leave my stuff behind. I had the Writeherewritenow posters with me,so I left them at Crossword and came out of the Bookstore.
Thankfully,the rest of the week was brighter.Writeherewritenow has one new member this week and a lot of paperwork has been sorted out.I am aiming to set up at least two Workshops this month,one of which will be for WritehereWritenow members. I am also trying to get the Lifeline Project to kickstart.Will keep updating this blog as and when I get things done.
What I learnt this week was to not take things and situations for granted and to take setbacks well (I obviously didn't, in this case),but I have a long way to go and these are merely stepping stones which will help me learn to do my work well.
What I thought would be a half an hour meeting turned out to be a twenty second meeting, with the Marketing Manager telling me that they "only organise stuff during holidays". When I politely inquired as to whether they have events on Saturdays and Sundays,she said that they did and asked me to "leave my stuff behind. I had the Writeherewritenow posters with me,so I left them at Crossword and came out of the Bookstore.
Thankfully,the rest of the week was brighter.Writeherewritenow has one new member this week and a lot of paperwork has been sorted out.I am aiming to set up at least two Workshops this month,one of which will be for WritehereWritenow members. I am also trying to get the Lifeline Project to kickstart.Will keep updating this blog as and when I get things done.
What I learnt this week was to not take things and situations for granted and to take setbacks well (I obviously didn't, in this case),but I have a long way to go and these are merely stepping stones which will help me learn to do my work well.
June 26, 2008
A few days of work in Hyderabad
Hyderabad was a good experience. I spent three and a half days there. Left from Mumbai on the night of June 16, and got back here on the morning of June 21.
One of my days was spent at the printer's, with Pawan and Achala who work at Spark. We had gone there with the proofs of the book I had proofread and passed on to Sheel while she was in Mumbai. It was a bit boring to sit and read out corrections to the guy at the printer's, but then that stage of print production is really important.
Spent the rest of my days in Hyderabad at the Spark office. Met Sushma who has recently joined the organization as the co-ordinator of the teacher resource centre. Sushma, Sheel and I had a few meetings, discussing and brainstorming on different aspects related to the proposed resource centre -- classification of the existing collection, acquisition of new material (which I've been doing in Mumbai), exploring sources of funding, putting together a databse of resource persons who would conduct workshops, and getting feedback from prospective users of the resource centre. Enjoyed all of that. We also sorted out a big pile of publisher catalogues, school brochures and other stuff. And then drew up a list of places I would visit after getting back to Mumbai. Met some other people at Spark, and there was a bit of bonding. Usha and Sheel are wonderful people.
After coming back to Mumbai, I have visited two places in connection with my resource centre work -- ADAPT and Hobby Ideas.
ADAPT stands for Abled Disabled All People Together. It was earlier called the Spastics Society of India. I spent an afternoon there, looking at the materials in their National Resource Centre on Inclusion, and making notes. Bought a few publications and films produced by them. And enquired about the teacher training courses they conduct. Arati Thakur, the librarian, was very helpful. She even offered to mail me a lot of other useful information over email.
Hobby Ideas is a children's store where they stock materials on art and craft related hobbies. A lot of the stuff was, frankly speaking, not at all conducive to creativity. I mean, what's the point of encouraging a child to make a card on his own, and then supplying him with a whole kit and how-to-guide on it?! Anyway, I did get a good lead there. There's a place called Parksons Games in Daman. They have some really interesting stuff. Will check that out.
Oh, and while I was in Hyderabad, had a chat with Prof Alok Bhalla. He gave me a lot of suggestions about people and places connected with education and children's literature.
Well, that's it for now!
One of my days was spent at the printer's, with Pawan and Achala who work at Spark. We had gone there with the proofs of the book I had proofread and passed on to Sheel while she was in Mumbai. It was a bit boring to sit and read out corrections to the guy at the printer's, but then that stage of print production is really important.
Spent the rest of my days in Hyderabad at the Spark office. Met Sushma who has recently joined the organization as the co-ordinator of the teacher resource centre. Sushma, Sheel and I had a few meetings, discussing and brainstorming on different aspects related to the proposed resource centre -- classification of the existing collection, acquisition of new material (which I've been doing in Mumbai), exploring sources of funding, putting together a databse of resource persons who would conduct workshops, and getting feedback from prospective users of the resource centre. Enjoyed all of that. We also sorted out a big pile of publisher catalogues, school brochures and other stuff. And then drew up a list of places I would visit after getting back to Mumbai. Met some other people at Spark, and there was a bit of bonding. Usha and Sheel are wonderful people.
After coming back to Mumbai, I have visited two places in connection with my resource centre work -- ADAPT and Hobby Ideas.
ADAPT stands for Abled Disabled All People Together. It was earlier called the Spastics Society of India. I spent an afternoon there, looking at the materials in their National Resource Centre on Inclusion, and making notes. Bought a few publications and films produced by them. And enquired about the teacher training courses they conduct. Arati Thakur, the librarian, was very helpful. She even offered to mail me a lot of other useful information over email.
Hobby Ideas is a children's store where they stock materials on art and craft related hobbies. A lot of the stuff was, frankly speaking, not at all conducive to creativity. I mean, what's the point of encouraging a child to make a card on his own, and then supplying him with a whole kit and how-to-guide on it?! Anyway, I did get a good lead there. There's a place called Parksons Games in Daman. They have some really interesting stuff. Will check that out.
Oh, and while I was in Hyderabad, had a chat with Prof Alok Bhalla. He gave me a lot of suggestions about people and places connected with education and children's literature.
Well, that's it for now!
June 19, 2008
About Self-expression,among other things :)
Hello everyone!
My name is Reeti Roy and I'm a second year student of English Literature and I'm studying in Jadavpur University,Kolkata. As part of the Choice Youth Leadership Programme,I will be working with an Organisation called "WritehereWritenow"(which I will refer to as WHWN henceforth), an Online Writing Community for Schoolchildren.
WritehereWritenow conducts workshops every month for schoolchildren between the ages of 12-14. My work will be to ensure that people from classes nine to twelve also develop an interest and decide to pursue this course. Whwn charges its members a nominal fee of Rs Rs 500 annually and conducts a number of Online and Offline courses.
I will also try to get Clubs, Schools and Bookstores interested in our venture. I will also help to devise the Modules of the Creative Writing workshops that we will conduct.
So from next month,I'll probably be hopping around, setting up meetings, talking to people about WHWN, getting down to knowing and understanding the intricacies of WHWN myself and hopefully coming up with creative ideas on how to market WHWN :)
WHWN is also going to be conducting "Diary Writing Sessions" in schools. So how does this thing work? Are we going to ask people to read out from their diaries? Is this a way of improving one's writing? Absolutely not. This is an age old method of therapy. Today,teenagers have to deal with a lot of angst. Sibling Trouble,Pressure from parents with regard to Academics and trying to fit in with one's peers just add to all the mayhem in a teenagers life. And the fact that West Bengal has the highest number of suicides happening isn't just a cold statistic anymore.We're not psychiatrists or even psychologists, but we do believe that Arts IS therapeutic and all we want schoolchildren to do, is to write about their troubles and experiences so that they can give vent to their frustrations.We want to use the Arts as a way of Therapy.Some people paint.And others,they listen to music.We want to encourage people to write away their agony.We also want to ask the students how they feel before and after they write.After the writing session,we will have an open discussion and we will ask young people about what it is that irks them about their lives and what are the niggling fears and anxieties that they are battling on a daily basis.(It will be voluntary,of course.No one will be forced to speak if they don't want to.)We don't know how well this is going to be received,but I think that this is something that is extremely important and something that we have to do.There is a chance of schools shying away saying "this doesn't happen in our schools"but I think it's necessary to be persistent about such issues.
I will keep documenting my experiences on this blog as I go along.
In the meanwhile,do check out our website:WritehereWritenow
My name is Reeti Roy and I'm a second year student of English Literature and I'm studying in Jadavpur University,Kolkata. As part of the Choice Youth Leadership Programme,I will be working with an Organisation called "WritehereWritenow"(which I will refer to as WHWN henceforth), an Online Writing Community for Schoolchildren.
WritehereWritenow conducts workshops every month for schoolchildren between the ages of 12-14. My work will be to ensure that people from classes nine to twelve also develop an interest and decide to pursue this course. Whwn charges its members a nominal fee of Rs Rs 500 annually and conducts a number of Online and Offline courses.
I will also try to get Clubs, Schools and Bookstores interested in our venture. I will also help to devise the Modules of the Creative Writing workshops that we will conduct.
So from next month,I'll probably be hopping around, setting up meetings, talking to people about WHWN, getting down to knowing and understanding the intricacies of WHWN myself and hopefully coming up with creative ideas on how to market WHWN :)
WHWN is also going to be conducting "Diary Writing Sessions" in schools. So how does this thing work? Are we going to ask people to read out from their diaries? Is this a way of improving one's writing? Absolutely not. This is an age old method of therapy. Today,teenagers have to deal with a lot of angst. Sibling Trouble,Pressure from parents with regard to Academics and trying to fit in with one's peers just add to all the mayhem in a teenagers life. And the fact that West Bengal has the highest number of suicides happening isn't just a cold statistic anymore.We're not psychiatrists or even psychologists, but we do believe that Arts IS therapeutic and all we want schoolchildren to do, is to write about their troubles and experiences so that they can give vent to their frustrations.We want to use the Arts as a way of Therapy.Some people paint.And others,they listen to music.We want to encourage people to write away their agony.We also want to ask the students how they feel before and after they write.After the writing session,we will have an open discussion and we will ask young people about what it is that irks them about their lives and what are the niggling fears and anxieties that they are battling on a daily basis.(It will be voluntary,of course.No one will be forced to speak if they don't want to.)We don't know how well this is going to be received,but I think that this is something that is extremely important and something that we have to do.There is a chance of schools shying away saying "this doesn't happen in our schools"but I think it's necessary to be persistent about such issues.
I will keep documenting my experiences on this blog as I go along.
In the meanwhile,do check out our website:WritehereWritenow
LOOK THROUGH THE LENSES
Hi,
I am Rashi Anand from Kolkata and pursuing Masters in Political Studies in JNU,
I am doing an internship with 'Seagull Foundation for the Arts' in Kolkata and getting the opportunity to learn a lot. I have been fortunately assigned to work with Naveen Kishore himself and prepare an archive for his valuable photographic projects.
Through photographs one can actually sense and feel. This is what I also found in Naveen Kishore's photographs. His pictures make you feel as if you present in the place where the picture has been taken. He has traveled through the world taking pictures all over. I have had the luck of going through all his work which consists pictures of New York, London, Japan, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, France, Nepal, Bhutan and most of India which consists of Kolkata, Goa, Sikkim, Mumbai, Pune etc.
There are also pictures of various theatre performances of which Manipur fascinates me . There are also the pictures of performances of Jatra, an ancient form of theatre in
It is quite a wonder how one manages to capture the world in his lenses. Naveen seems to capture the 'civilization' and the best part is how you feel as a part of each corner of the globe as you go through his pictures. He captures the natural expression on every being’s face without any artificial painstaking postures.
My work is going at a good and a comfortable pace and a lot more is left to be done, and I would make sure no stone is left unturned. I would definitely be writing again to fill you all up with more of my valuable experience.
June 15, 2008
This blog post has been long overdue but today I finally discarded my recent laze-attack-cum-not-feeling-like-working-phase.
Well, I thought its best I started by introducing myself. My name is Rohit K Dasgupta and am a final year student of Comparative Literature in Jadavpur University. I am interning with this organization based in Kolkata called Kalam Margins Write. They are a literary organization which conducts workshops and helps in building critical and creative voices amongst the youth in the marginalized sections of Kolkata. It creates a radical space within the present framework within which these youth can think and hone their literary and creative skills and develop sharp analytical and creative minds.
The first project I was involved with was the launch of the annual magazine “Khola Baksho” (Open Box). The magazine was a collection of poems written by various youths between the ages of eight and eighteen. The launch was celebrated amidst much fanfare at Worldview bookstore, Jadavpur University campus. The poets read out their works and there was some music between interludes to keep the mood alive and add to the ambience.
Other than this I have been helping in moderating and documenting the workshops for two separate writing programs called "Writing out” which is a fifteen session poetry workshop dealing with the concept of identity and adolescence. We have been conducting these workshops with a group of 11 kids from Vikramshila, every Wednesday. The themes and topics ranged from every day observations using the five senses to topics such as Motherland.
The other program I have been associated with is “Neighbourhood diaries” which is aimed at creating young journalists who could address the problems within their own neighborhoods and learn to appreciate and build up an analytical mind towards the problems within their Neighbourhoods and try and come up with solutions. This is held every Monday with a group of youths from Sanlaap, at Bowbazar.
Some of the works of these journalists can be viewed at:
http://bowbazaar.neighbourhooddiaries.org/
So far the experience has been mind-blowing, planning out sessions and conducting workshops with these young adolescents have been quite enjoyable. We as moderators have tried to make the sessions as lively and enjoyable as possible and often went out of the set/planned curriculum and tried out new stuff which got back good feedbacks.
Check out the Kalam Website to know more about the organization and what it does.
Well, I thought its best I started by introducing myself. My name is Rohit K Dasgupta and am a final year student of Comparative Literature in Jadavpur University. I am interning with this organization based in Kolkata called Kalam Margins Write. They are a literary organization which conducts workshops and helps in building critical and creative voices amongst the youth in the marginalized sections of Kolkata. It creates a radical space within the present framework within which these youth can think and hone their literary and creative skills and develop sharp analytical and creative minds.
The first project I was involved with was the launch of the annual magazine “Khola Baksho” (Open Box). The magazine was a collection of poems written by various youths between the ages of eight and eighteen. The launch was celebrated amidst much fanfare at Worldview bookstore, Jadavpur University campus. The poets read out their works and there was some music between interludes to keep the mood alive and add to the ambience.
Other than this I have been helping in moderating and documenting the workshops for two separate writing programs called "Writing out” which is a fifteen session poetry workshop dealing with the concept of identity and adolescence. We have been conducting these workshops with a group of 11 kids from Vikramshila, every Wednesday. The themes and topics ranged from every day observations using the five senses to topics such as Motherland.
The other program I have been associated with is “Neighbourhood diaries” which is aimed at creating young journalists who could address the problems within their own neighborhoods and learn to appreciate and build up an analytical mind towards the problems within their Neighbourhoods and try and come up with solutions. This is held every Monday with a group of youths from Sanlaap, at Bowbazar.
Some of the works of these journalists can be viewed at:
http://bowbazaar.neighbourhooddiaries.org/
So far the experience has been mind-blowing, planning out sessions and conducting workshops with these young adolescents have been quite enjoyable. We as moderators have tried to make the sessions as lively and enjoyable as possible and often went out of the set/planned curriculum and tried out new stuff which got back good feedbacks.
Check out the Kalam Website to know more about the organization and what it does.
June 12, 2008
An Invitation
The work I've been doing as part of my internship is really exciting, and I wish to get in touch with others who are interested in/committed to education. I have started a group on Facebook, and I'd like to invite you to be part of it. The group's name is 'People in Education'.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20885858553
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20885858553
Learning and having fun
Hi all
My name is Chintan. Glad that we now have a blog to share experiences with, and hence get to know, others who are part of Choice.
I am doing an internship with Spark India. It's a wonderful little organization based in Hyderabad. They publish and distribute books for children, and a special interest magazine called Teacher Plus. The project that I am closely associated with is the Teacher Resource Centre that Spark is in the process of setting up. The idea is to offer a friendly space for teachers, where they can look for interesting teaching-learning materials. That includes books, toys, films, and other kinds of material.
It feels great to be involved with this kind of work, especially because I have wanted to start my own library. I would like to teach and research in the area of education, and I enjoy interacting with kids. In the course of my internship, I've had the opportunity to meet and correspond with a range of interesting people and organisations. This has deepened my interest in education and children's literature. And I'm discovering that there's a whole lot of interesting work happening out there, which very few people know of. Karadi Tales, a Chennai-based company that produces audiobooks has come out with a compilation of poetry readings based on the poetry syllabus of Class IX-XII prescribed by the NCERT and CBSE. Then there's this tiny place called Jyotsna Prakashan in Mumbai. They've done some really nice translations of children's books that were originally written in Persian.
I also proofread a book called Teacher, written by Sylvia Ashton-Warner. It was first published in the UK, but since it is now in the public domain, Spark India is doing an Indian reprint. Enjoyed that. It's an autobiographical work by a teacher from New Zealand teaching in a Maori school.
My name is Chintan. Glad that we now have a blog to share experiences with, and hence get to know, others who are part of Choice.
I am doing an internship with Spark India. It's a wonderful little organization based in Hyderabad. They publish and distribute books for children, and a special interest magazine called Teacher Plus. The project that I am closely associated with is the Teacher Resource Centre that Spark is in the process of setting up. The idea is to offer a friendly space for teachers, where they can look for interesting teaching-learning materials. That includes books, toys, films, and other kinds of material.
It feels great to be involved with this kind of work, especially because I have wanted to start my own library. I would like to teach and research in the area of education, and I enjoy interacting with kids. In the course of my internship, I've had the opportunity to meet and correspond with a range of interesting people and organisations. This has deepened my interest in education and children's literature. And I'm discovering that there's a whole lot of interesting work happening out there, which very few people know of. Karadi Tales, a Chennai-based company that produces audiobooks has come out with a compilation of poetry readings based on the poetry syllabus of Class IX-XII prescribed by the NCERT and CBSE. Then there's this tiny place called Jyotsna Prakashan in Mumbai. They've done some really nice translations of children's books that were originally written in Persian.
I also proofread a book called Teacher, written by Sylvia Ashton-Warner. It was first published in the UK, but since it is now in the public domain, Spark India is doing an Indian reprint. Enjoyed that. It's an autobiographical work by a teacher from New Zealand teaching in a Maori school.
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