Pila Panchayat Trip to Bhubaneswar Confirmed

Just a quick post to note that after meeting with SPREAD director, Bidyut Mohanty and Project Coordinator, Pabitra Nayak, the proposed "exposure" trip to visit the beautiful Museum of Tribal Arts and Artifacts in Bhubaneswar, and the UNESCO World Heritage Sun Temple and Radio Namaskar in Konark is a go! I hope the Museum will bolster the children's confidence in the significance of their culture and the Sun Temple will show the importance of preservation. Radio Namaskar will give them a "behind the scenes" look at mass communications and I hope will whet their interest in journalism and broadcasting.


We will take 10 or so of the older children on the overnight train, the Hirakand Express, from Koraput to Bhubaneswar and rent a van to continue to the coast and a day in Konark. Along the way we'll interview the directors of the Tribal Museum and Radio Namaskar to explore occupations in anthropology, broadcasting and journalism. We may even make some recordings in Radio Namaskar's sound studio. We just need to make arrangements for accommodations, check dates with the Tribal Museum and Radio Namaskar and book train tickets.

I am coming full circle, as I started my career organizing and leading all-school trips. I confess that I'm excited to see the kids experience a completely different world from their tribal villages, dip their toes in the Indian Ocean and stretch their imaginations about their futures.