Aripana Diaries

Humans have endeavored to make their life better by constantly creating and inventing. Largely, it has happened at the cost of the well-being of other species, flora and fauna. Statistics that point to the extent of environmental degradation occurring on a daily, even hourly basis are alarming. The world is at the edge of a dangerous precipice, and sadly, the most educated of us seem to have brought it there! Evidence is all around, making it hard to ignore, that learning in and itself has not exactly taught us to live in harmony with nature or care for natural resources. Majority educational experiences have failed to provide children with enough engagement with the natural world and the immediate environment. We don’t know the world around us enough, thus, kindling in us only a weak desire if at all to fight for it or protect it.

If the goal of education is to help build a just, humane, equitable and sustainable society, then sustainability and environmental education ought to be a central part of a child’s educational experience. The sphere of education must expand to include sustainability thinking and environmental education. A famous quote expresses our thoughts best. “In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.”

The present educational experience of children teaches them that learning happens by sitting quietly inside a classroom, listening to the teacher, who is the dispenser of ‘knowledge’.  The way learning has been shaped in most of our educational institutions, it provides very little scope for body-mind interaction, for the mind to understand and learn through bodily experiences (Martin. J, 2010) or for learning to take place by doing. Learning is mostly memorizing facts, a cerebral exercise! An education that builds scientific, humanistic as well as aesthetic understanding of the world, through encouragement of physical practice, experience and exploration is the need of the hour.  Students learn about themselves and their relationship with the world, more so through physical practice and an intense engagement that requires beckons all their senses. Sustainability and environmental education encourage this kind of learning, where students not just have ample scope to but are required to engage with the world outside their classrooms.

In this quest to help education create responsible citizens and the educational experience to be a holistic one, Aripana Foundation is fortunate to partner with Wipro Foundation in implementing its Sustainability Educators Program, June 2020-2023.

Aripana Foundation has commenced on what it believes will be a fruitful journey as Wipro Foundation’s partner, undertaking the responsibility to strengthen environmental and sustainability education, sustainability thinking in selected schools of districts in North Bihar.

More updates coming soon!

नन्हें बच्चों के लिए खुली किताब, एक दर्पण तथा एक खिड़की, दोनों की तरह काम करती है, जो ख़ुद को तथा जिस दुनिया में वे रहते हैं उसे, बेहतर तरीक़े से जानने में उनका साथ देती है। या कहें कि यह बच्चों को उनकी ज़िन्दगी से जुड़ी घटनाओं, किस्सों – कहानियों और मुद्दों के साथ साथ एक ऐसी दुनिया से भी परिचित करवाती है जो उन्होंने देखी तक नहीं है या अभी देखना बाकी है।

बाल साहित्य से बच्चों को ज्ञात होता है कि कैसे विभिन्न समुदायों ने ख़ुद को और अपने आपसी संबंधनों को समझते हुए प्रकृति के साथ अपने संबंधो को भी जाना। बाल साहित्य द्वारा बच्चे कहानियों के विभिन अवयवों जैसे – कथानक, विषयवस्तु और चरित्रों से रूबरू होने के साथ – साथ, कहीं न कहीं भाषा और मूल्यों से भी परिचित होते हैं।  

अतः प्रोजेक्ट लेमन चूस का उद्देश्य है –  मैथिलि में गुणवत्ता पूर्ण बाल साहित्य का निर्माण करना और उसे बच्चों तक पहुँचाना। मैथिलि, जो कि उत्तरी बिहार में बोली जाने वाली भाषा है, लाखों बच्चों की ज़ुबान पर तो है लेकिन फिर भी सामाजिक और राजनैतिक रूप से प्रभावी अन्य भाषाओं के बीच अपनी एक जगह बनाने का संघर्ष कर रही है। हम आशा करते हैं कि मैथिल बच्चे मैथिलि में लिखी इन किताबों को मजे के साथ पढेंगे और पसंद करेंगे। उम्मीद है कि इन किताबों में लिखी कहानियाँ उनकी यादों में लंबे समय तक रहेंगी, कुछ वैसे ही जैसे हमारे बचपन का लमन चूस, जिस का स्वाद आज भी हमारी यादों में ताज़ा है!

Children’s literature can act as both, a mirror and a window, to the worlds in which children live. It introduces them to stories, ideas and issues related to their own lives as well as to lives and worlds as yet unseen.  It makes available to them the collective knowledge about how individuals and communities have understood themselves and their relationships with each other and with nature. Through it, children also understand the elements of stories like plot, characters, theme, setting, values and language use.

Project Lemon Choos aims to create and make available, quality children’s literature in Maithili – a language of North Bihar, foremost on many a children’s tongue, yet struggling to hold its own against other socially and politically dominant languages. In addition to creating original works in Maithili, the project will also involve translations of some of the choicest works in children’s literature from across the world, that validate children’s imagination and keep their inner world thriving.  We hope Maithil children savour these books, much like the Lemon Choos we all savored as children.