[Originally Posted by Akshat Tewari]

Chirag school is located in Simayal village in the Kumaon district in Uttarakhand and is run by a rural development organization Chirag. The school's goal is to demonstrate that quality education for rural children can be provided at an affordable cost. The school also envisions itself as a model on which educational endeavors can be based.

I designed and executed(with assistance from Poonam didi, Grade 4 teacher) a two-week long, inquiry oriented hands-on project, on 'Earthquake and earthquake resistant house design' for grade 4 children. At the end of the 2 weeks, children in their respective groups learned about earthquakes by making working models and also built an earthquake resistant house on the ground. Please read the document below and kindly share your views/feedback/critique.



Some thoughts on the time spent in the village...

For the first time, I got an opportunity to stay, eat and live in a village. With vegetables (mostly potato) freshly dug from the fields and cooked with no spices, the food tasted deliciously simple. Freedom to not to pay for the fruits and pick them straight from fruit laden trees all around, was another delight. A two-km morning walk to the school, children peeping from their houses and shouting 'dadda namaste' and we all leaving together to come to school; in the evening, walking back, watching the sun go down behind a dark & distant mountain and watching the sky change colors are indeed some memories etched for long :) The best part of my stay, were two birds living (in their natural environs) with me in the house where I stayed; used to wake up with me in the morning and in the evening when I returned, they too returned to their warm comfortable nest.

What makes me feel proud, is that, because of the work I did for the school a family in the village got paid (as they hosted me for two weeks) :)

Posted by Akshat Tewari on Sep 12, 2015 | permalink