The Children Literature Festival was held in the beautiful cities of Mardan and Swabi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa this month! The events were organized vigorously by Idara e Taleem o Aagahi.
ITA set up Summer Camps in 4 schools, 2 in each Swabi and Mardan to engage children who are otherwise occupied in the tobacco fields during the summer, to have educational and learning activities to develop skills and encourage reading and learning at an age where they, according to law must be provided free education as their fundamental right.
Mardan is one of the major tobacco growing areas in Pakistan. A rapid increase in poverty ratio and lack of educational facilities forces parents to engage their children in domestic labor. Child labor in tobacco fields in Mardan is a common practice. Above 20,000 kids work as domestic servants in the district and earn no more than Rs. 20 per day.
It was the first time that a festival of this kind was held for the children of Mardan where they were made part of multi-sensory educational and learning activities such as Interactive Theater Workshops, Origami, and Storytelling.
It was a day enriched with hope, celebrations, patriotism and compassion! Children learnt the skill of making origami shapes via workshops and thoroughly enjoyed taking pleasure in their beautiful creations. They learned to make birds, airplanes, kites and even shoes using paper! It was marvelous to see these children learn Origami at such a great pace.
Our resource persons, teachers and students, all participated ever so enthusiastically! Students made patriotic speeches and presented theatrical skits; poetry, jokes and national songs were sung with extreme fervor. Students also put forward their unique talents. Boys and girls acted out short plays and sung songs in their sweet and melodious voices. Reading aloud patriotic poetry and narrating jokes is a daily morning assembly exercise at schools in the district and hence the students sung with greater enthusiasm at the festival.
The festival enticed children from the entire locality who couldn’t resist keeping themselves from a day filled with entertaining activities! Children enjoyed participating in all the happenings of the event. The festival entailed a performance by local artists who played Chitrali music using Rubab and the traditional Garha. This was followed by a Magic Show for children. It was thoroughly enjoyed by students as well as the teachers and staff of the school for having seen it for the first time!
Children’s films were screened and students were asked questions over what important lessons were learnt from the film they had just seen! The idea of watching a film on a projector was in itself a wonderful experience for these children. They watched 3 Bahadur (Three Brave Ones); a 3D animated adventure film that surrounds the journey of 3 friends in saving their community from evil, directed by the Oscar winning filmmaker Shirmeen Obaid Chinoy. Students kept themselves glued to their chairs till the end of screening.
A child’s brain is fully developed at the age of 5. Our children need attention. They need to be provided free and quality education by all means so as to develop in them an urge to read and learn, more and more. This is exactly what ITA strives every day to achieve.
When you see festivals like the CLF taking to areas like Mardan and Swabi where children have access to very basic education, if at all; you realize the vacuum that it is trying to fill by reaching out to these children who have so much potential in themselves but hardly any opportunities and/or facilities to aid them to develop mentally and physically.
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