THE JOY OF LEARNING

Anshu Meshack

As the children scamper out of the confines of their classrooms and rush to their favorite period of the week, they chatter excitedly about the previous week’s class, and speculate about what’s in store this week. Maybe that long-awaited visit to the beach will finally be announced today.

The excitement is equally palpable among the two teachers who call to order the group of about thirty children, aged between eleven and fifteen. Almost on cue, the children stop their whispering and gather together solemnly to conduct the only mandatory activity in each such weekly session: reaffirming the Pledge: ‘I, … , proud Member of Varsha Eco Club, pledge to do my best to improve the environment of my home, my school and neighborhood…’

In the pristine natural surroundings of the school, this pledge heralds the coming of a determined effort to protect the rich natural heritage that these children are future caretakers of. The location is the sleepy town of Mayabunder in Middle Andaman Island, one of the larger islands in the emerald green archipelago of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, India’s southern-most Union Territory. This effort is also the beginning of an initiative that can perhaps impede the inevitable degeneration of the fragile ecosystem of the Islands, wrought by the ever-increasing impact of human activity and a booming tourism industry.

This group of children, alongwith similar groups in five other state-run schools in Mayabunder, are members of newly-formed Eco Clubs that form the Andaman Eco Network, a collective of school children and teachers who work towards raising sensitivity to the environment and build a sense of responsibility and ownership to make ‘development’ eco-friendly and sustainable in the long run. After all, the children of these children must also share the same excitement about their unique natural wealth.

An initiative of Charkha Development Communication Network, New Delhi, the Project uses appropriate forms of media to communicate the aspirations of the children of this remote part of the country, through their writings and Radio programs. Building linkages with the local and national media is, therefore, a crucial component of the Project.

The six government schools selected for the year-long Pilot Project are within a fifteen-kilometer radius of the town of Mayabunder, in settlements comprising communities who have settled here from different parts of the country: Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Bengal and even from Burma; all now identified simply as ‘locals’ and ‘settlers’.

The schools have identified their respective Eco Clubs with locally-relevant names like Hornbill; Blister and Voice of Nature (VON) Eco Club. The common logo of the Andaman Eco Network identifies each Club as a member of the Network, thus integrating the independently-run Eco Clubs within a collective that will strengthen and take forward the efforts of the children in the years to come, across the different Islands and culturally distinct resident communities.

Meanwhile, the field trip has, indeed, been announced at Varsha Eco Club’s weekly gathering. The children can hardly contain their excitement as they return to their respective classes, waiting to share their delight with their classmates, who wait impatiently for the next year, when they too will have the chance to share in the joy of learning, and of being proud caretakers of their environment.

(Charkha Features)