[Reader-list] The koel's song

[Chintan]

The koel’s song

By Manjira Majumdar

Poverty and inaccessibility keep the adivasi children of six villages in
Birbhum district, West Bengal, out of government schools. But they are
getting an innovative and creative non-formal education at Suchana. A
storybook written and illustrated by the children themselves has just been
published

It’s a slim storybook for children, but what’s unique about it is that the
stories in it are not written for children, but by children. Called Kokiler
Banshir Sur in Bengali (roughly translated that would be Songs from the
Koel’s Flute), the stories in this book are short and sweet. The
illustrations too are done by the children.

Kokiler Banshir Sur comes out of a literacy project by the Uttar Chandipur
Community Society, called Suchana.

“The storybook grew out of the school magazine idea,” says Kirsty Milward,
one of the main pillars of Suchana. She and her husband Rahul Bose started
Suchana in 2004 as a pre-school initiative for their own three pre-school
children and for others who were interested. Gradually, this non-formal
school in Uttar Chandipur, about 6 km from Shantiniketan, in West Bengal’s
Birbhum district, took on a life of its own. It presently caters to the
education and health needs of around 150 children, aged between four and 13,
from six villages in the region.

Somnath Dolui, who was one of the three main resourcepersons for the
creative writing classes every Wednesday for about three months, guided the
children through the entire writing process. He said: “In stories, everyone
talks -- the sky, birds, rivers.” He told them to write about anything. To
bank on their own impressions, members of their family, their experiences.
And to try and come up with a funny ending. That’s all the instructions he
gave. This freedom resulted in a riot of imaginative, original stories.

To get the children to think independently and write their own stories,
Somnath had to be a storyteller himself, first. He drew on his own
repertoire of stories and books from the Suchana library.

Bengal has a rich tradition of children’s folktales; the children had to
first identify with the concept of a tale.

Sometimes the teachers gave them story-starters, and sometimes they started
with a discussion on a recent event or a day they had enjoyed. They were
then asked to write about it. Each had an exercise book in which to write
their stories; some had five or six. From this pool the best stories were
selected and finally voted to become part of the book. It took a year for
the book to be printed, but the anticipation of a book in print kept the
children enthused right from the start.

Even as the book was being produced the children continued writing better
and more varied stories; the illustrations did not start until after the
stories were selected.

There are 14 stories in the final collection, including a travel story and
two poems. More have been banked for future use.

The above is an excerpt from
http://infochangeindia.org/200910217993/Children/Stories-of-change/The-koel%E2%80%99s-song.html

Visit the link to read the entire article.