CHALO 'GAURAIYA KE LIYE GHAR' BANAYE!
By Sahana Rajan in UNITED TO PROTECT THE GAURAIYA (THE HOUSE SPARROW)

‘We did it!’ remarked Gitika Debnath waving her hands up, with a sigh of relief and joy after the three hours event. Well, the three hours event felt like a few moments of ecstasy that had been backed up by over twelve hours of careful planning and incessant publicity (in parks, notice boards and variety of hangout areas).
Held on 4th March 2012, ‘Chalo Gauraiya Ke Liye Ghar Banaye’ was a workshop for children of grade 4th to grade 7th and the target was to introduce them to the most common family of bird, the House Sparrow. The event was conducted by Rakesh Khatri and was organized by a team of three young adults, namely, Gitika Debnath, Jithin Chandran and Sahana Rajan. We were helped by over four teenagers of the locality in arranging the venue for the program. The event on Bird House was a sudden one and the doubt about the turnout was lingering. Moreover, this was the first event of its kind in our locality. Well, over forty five kids joined us in this endeavor. To generate enthusiasm among the children, the prime method used were educational interaction and ‘work with hands’ strategy.

Educational Interaction: Rakesh Khatri gave a kick-start to the event with a fun question-and-answer communication with the children. The children were asked about the ten kinds of birds they knew, except for Pigeon and Crow. The next query bounced on other bird-related topics and we were taught to make the bird house. With activity supported by entertaining contact, the children grasped the making of the bird house quickly and the next five bird houses constructed by them rolled in quickly.

Work with Hands: The generation of the bird house was an exciting task. From the settling of newspaper inside the shell (the moist bedding for the little sparrow) to the roping the dry grass around the shell to set seal to the bird house, the kids eagerly waited for their chance to do their allotted task. Working with Hands helped them to have fun and allowed us to subtly drop in data about the environment. In this way, while promoting crafts as an art, we succeeded in teaching children to reach out to the nature in new ways.
Empowering the environment through the youngsters of today is the prime task of nature-lovers. This event is an opening to a plethora of more effective and successful programs, which will not only spread love for the nature but will powerfully, enrich the mind of the children towards self-development.
Report · March 6 at 8:35pm
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