ACTIVITIES
Arundhati Roy visited our school at Chamaru on March 18, 2022
Children rehearsing for a play initiated by Pehal: Strengthening the Basis of Education
An Introduction to Pehal: Strengthening the Basis of Education
December 12, 2022: A nursery child learning colours, shapes and arrangements.
December 5, 2022: A child tells a story through a drawing that she has made.
October, 2022 onwards: In October this year, Shashi Bala joined the Pehel team to work with the children. She has former experience as teacher and facilitator at Co-Veda, Chandigarh, that offers alternative learning and teaching methods based on the teachings of Sri Aurobindo. She comes to Chamaru three times a week to work with children from all five classes of the Primary School where she carefully designs activities to enhance the physical, mental vitality of the child.
On August 29, Bawan, from the Jodo Gyan organization of Delhi came to do a workshop with the teachers of our school. The workshop introduced creative ways of teaching Math to the children.
For a week in mid-June, 2022, Balakrishnan Raghavan, offered interactive sessions where he taught math and music to the children
June 5, 2022, Gunjit Chopra, script writer, visited Chamaru and met with the school children.
On March 18, Arundhati Roy, Sanjay Kak and Daljit Ami came to Chamaru and the children did a special performance for them.
Through March and April, the children performed the play several times at the school and around the village.
During the severest weeks of January and February 2022, Vijay Kumar of the Ceva Drama Repertory Company, Chandigarh, came to Chamaru for a whole month to do a theater workshop and then devise a street play with the children.
December 15, the Char Yaar team visited from Delhi, and one of its members, Deepak Castelino introduced the guitar to the children and followed it with a little concert.
In November, 2021, Maria Fernandes visited Chamaru, the plan was further whetted with her and she also spent a few days helping the children with their homeworks.
In August, Harleen Kohli, one of the trustees of Pehal, visited Chamaru and the plan was shared with her.
August 2021: We continued to refine the plan by visiting the school, interacting with the children and the teachers, to get a realistic grasp of things as they pertained on the ground.
Through the first week of June, 2022, Shachi Katira, a scientist and therapist, did intensive interactive sessions with the children, using educational toys and games to teach math and science playfully.
In July, 2021, the sarpanch of village Chamaru, Harpreet Singh, along with Balakrishnan Raghawan, a Carnatic vocalist, and dancer/choreographer Navtej Johar began to brainstorm and envision ways to make education at the sarkari (government) primary school of the village, vibrant, exciting and child-friendly.
Here the three are seen sitting discussing on one of those summer evenings.
By early August, 2021, the three, Harpreet Singh (sarpanch), Bala (Balakrishnan Raghavan) and Navtej (Johar) had a working-plan in place, Bala converted it into a PPT, and it was presented to the panchayat of Chamaru who approved it wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, on that particular evening, the women members of the panchayat were unable to attend.
July 2021: The school building was still incomplete at that point, so one of our first priorities was to get the infrastructure in place. And the other equally pressing priority was to hire more teachers as at that point the school had only one teacher for its hundred-and-four students. This was also a particularly hard time because this was exactly after the lockdown was lifted and the school was reopening after a long gap, and many of the children had lapsed in their studies and even forgotten what they had learnt in the past.