Heritage Education and Communication Service conducted teacher training workshops in Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu; and Gwalior and Datia in Madhya Pradesh in August 2008. In Kodaikanal workshop, nature trails were organized to make them aware of the local plants and their needs. In Gwalior, the site visit was to the Gujari Mahal and the State Archaeological Museum whereas in Datia, teachers visited the Vijay Mahal with a local expert. The workshops were extremely successful as teachers responded and participated very actively in the sessions. 15 schools have already started Heritage Clubs in these places after the workshops.

Nationwide painting contest on ‘Children from Historic Towns in India’

In the past few years, HECS has conducted a series of programmes to encourage students’ participation across INTACH Chapters through Navratna (Nine starts of My City), painting competitions, essay and slogan competitions, etc.

Next in this series was a Painting Contest entitled ‘Children from Heritage Towns of India’. All INTACH Chapters were invited to be part of this by involving schools in their respective Chapters. 25 Chapters participated in this Contest by sending over 1500 paintings from schools in these Chapters. We appreciate the efforts of these Convenors for encouraging schools to participate in this contest. HECS also conducted an on-the-spot painting competition for Delhi Schools on Aug 6, 2008 on the theme ‘Historic Cities of India’.

The similar themes of the these two painting contests aimed to make students aware of the fact that they live in a historic country with many historic cities/towns, each having a distinctive heritage and culture, and develop a concern for their preservation and conservation.

The best entries of the two contests will be published in the Heritage Souvenir for ARCC and as greeting cards.

Films by Heritage Club Members
Heritage Club of Bluebells International School prepared two films on Delhi’s heritage made by students – one on Qutub Minar and other on Humanyun’s Tomb, which were screened at the INTACH Central Office. This is a good way of involving and encouraging students to be aware of their heritage and the need to protect it.

HECS will be happy to know of such efforts by Heritage Clubs across the INTACH Chapters and receive films/creative resource material on local heritage prepared by Heritage Club members.

Young INTACH Newsletter
Heritage Club of Bluebells International School prepared two films on Delhi’s heritage made by students – one on Qutub Minar and other on Humanyun’s Tomb, which were screened at the INTACH Central Office. This is a good way of involving and encouraging students to be aware of their heritage and the need to protect it.

The July – September 2008 issue of the Young INTACH newsletter was based on the theme Trees and Traditions and was very well received by Convenors and Heritage Club members.

Citizenship Education and Heritage
As part of its efforts to prepare a module for Citizenship Education and Heritage for INTACH Chapters and Convenors, in July 2008 HECS conducted an interactive session with the students of Bluebells School International and St. Mary’s School; and few experts from different fields in Delhi to discuss the role of young people as responsible citizens and what all they can do to protect India’s rich heritage.

HECS has developed a number of innovative programmes using mass media like radio and film to spread awareness about heritage. The latest innovation is called Filmit India.
This is a multi-cultural project that aims at nurturing cultural understanding, care and concern amongst school children, in India and England, through the exciting experience of making and sharing films. It aims to help children to better understand the physical and cultural environment, in which they live, and the contributions made by different cultures and communities.

The Filmit India program was especially designed for such cross-cultural sharing between students to enable them to tell their story, share their cultural uniqueness, to express their excitement on a variety of topics with students in other schools and countries.

This pilot project is being funded by the Helen Hamlyn Trust. 12 schools were selected in this phase in Delhi and 65 schools in UK.

Two workshops were held in the months of August and September. The first workshop was a content workshop to introduce the teachers from selected schools, to the objectives and to gain their support for this project. The themes and content of the films were agreed upon by the teachers.

Middle school teachers teaching social sciences and languages attended this workshop. This gave the workshop a multidisciplinary thrust as teachers integrated heritage learning with a number of disciplines. The second workshop was a one day technical workshop organized for teachers to introduce them to the camera, process of film making, editing and other technical details. In all 40 teachers and 30 students were trained.

In the month of October, as part of the programme to enhance content development for the films, INTACH together with Sanskriti Pratishthan organized Pottery Workshops for the students. Students also visited the Terracotta and Everyday Life Museums at Anandgram. More than 300 students were trained in pottery making and showed tremendous enthusiasm in learning new skills.

By November 2008 children had created more than 35 short films on the following topics school life, family life, festivals, and their city. These films have received These films have been uploaded on to the Filmit website and shared with students in United Kingdom. This is the first international heritage education venture of HECS, INTACH and we are preparing to celebrate it with a film festival in January. We will be inviting students from the schools and they would share their experiences of learnings from the project. In the next phase it is planned to cover other cities.