Saturday, April 10, 2010

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.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Pila Parab a Success!

Our Pila Parab "children's convention" brought more than 100 Hill Tribes children together for two days and two nights of cultural activities and just plain fun staying up all night, watching videos and dancing. The parab is always built around culture, but this year we made an extra effort to emphasize the importance of cultural identity by setting up a "children's museum" for cultural artifacts and artwork and distributing educational materials about the Catching the Moon project that explain what oral traditions are and illustrate what metadata needs to be collected for each asset.

The focus of the activities are competitions in song, storytelling, drawing and sculpture. For the event this year we asked the children to bring traditional artifacts, and they brought beautiful things: drawings of Chaitra Parab - a village festival going on concurrently - clay sculptures of traditional and modern artifacts, and songs and stories. They were not shy at all about standing up to sing and tell folk tales and the evening when they performed skits was hilarious - although more about modern day trials and tribulations in school than traditional dramas.

The most telling moment of the event for me was when I saw that three out of the four girls who brought sculptures included mobile phones with their vegetables, boats, vessels and other traditional subjects. If there was any doubt that this is a moment of strong cross-currents in the culture, that doubt was expelled for me. I know this Capture the Moon project has a small scope but I hope it has at least a small lasting impact.

The high point of the event for me was the second and last evening when we distributed photos we had taken as the children arrived and registered. I thought there might have been an issue getting 100+ photos done in a short time, but the kids were so cooperative and eager that it was easy. We still didn't get them done until almost 4 PM because small groups of kids arrived all throughout the day. Each time I was ready to move the photos to my computer and then memory stick we'd see a group of them coming down the road or up from the river. The last contingent was 5 or 6 very little ones with women who must have been their grandmothers. Pila Panchayat is for children 6 - !4, who are old enough to benefit from the program, but they often bring their brothers and sisters in tow which is great. How wonderful to see the strong family bonds and also feel that the little ones are seeing that in addition to being fun, Pila Panchayat also helps people by standing up for rights.

We had made paper picture frames with the message: Culture is Identity and I am Responsible for Preserving my Culture. When the developed photos arrived by motorcycle on the second day, the children were frantic with anticipation, but it took us a couple of hours to apply the frames and glue them to cardboard backs. When the time came to distribute, the children were arranged in orderly rows, but as we called them up village by village to receive their pictures - bedlam erupted! They do not often get the chance to be photographed and especially to take a photo home, so this giveaway was particularly exciting for them. And for me. I hope they take the message seriously to heart and that the photos give them much happiness.


Although I am no artist, I was struck by how beautiful these portraits turned out. Partly it was the wonderful fabric backgrounds that I used - the "walls" of the bamboo tent house - and the vibrant colors of the children's garments in contrast to the rich browns of their skin. But mostly it was their handsome faces - the openness of their gaze and the strength and dignity with which they hold themselves, even the little ones. I came away just loving those kids. Just look at the handsome trio below, and click on the video to watch the group dance. See if you can resist them!