A Dream for the Islands
(Anshu Meshack shares her experiences of interacting with children of the Andaman Islands during a visit in February 2008 to assess the progress of a Pilot Project where Environmental Education in Schools is an effort to help the children become responsible future citizens of the country.)
A team of two from Charkha made a visit to the Andaman Islands from February 9 to 17, 2008. The experience was immensely moving; and as fulfilling as it was humbling. Hoping for that one smile on that one tender face of a child in a back-of-beyond settlement in a tucked away island is breathtaking, simply because it is so elusive. Far removed from the urban reality of thousands of us, one cannot but be transformed by its unbelievable reality.
Though small, the effort is towards a critical purpose: to make these children good citizens of tomorrow who are conscious of their responsibility to protect their fascinating, fragile and threatened environmental heritage. On the face of it, this is about Environmental Education. About 30-40 children in six remote government schools near Mayabunder, Middle Andaman, have become members of recently formed Eco Clubs, with each Club selecting a name for itself: Varsha, Hornbill, VON (Voice of Nature), Mangrove, Blister and Karma.
The volunteer teachers of each Eco Club plan out the annual calendar, including classroom and outdoor activities. The children watch environment-related films, devour colorful children’ books (all handpicked to conform to one crucial factor: fun, in contrast to the rather grim library books in the schools) and do tasks like keeping watch on excessive use of water, electricity and plastic in their schools. They go on nature walks (“picnic”, as a little voice from the back of the class explained to us) and come back with samples to paste in scrap books. The members of the Eco Clubs have been presented cloth bags to collect and bring back these samples. These bags are imprinted with the common logo of the Andaman Eco Network, of which these Eco Clubs are members. Essentially, environmental conservation is a universal concern, without being seen to take sides of any ethnic community, religion or political party, of which there is a vast array on the Islands.
The larger goal, however, is to reduce the acute sense of isolation the children feel in their remote homes with none of the comforts we take as a given in our own lives: electricity, telephone, roads, hospital, school, newspaper, radio - nothing.
The children have other things to worry about: how to get home from school because the incessant rain all day has filled the stream on the way to overflowing, making it impossible to wade through; how to avoid a beating when the alcoholic father comes home in a rage; how to clear the English and Maths exams when the teacher and text books have not turned up all year; how to adjust to living in a stranger’s house to attend Secondary school far from one’s own village with its solitary primary school; how to get through another drab year of schooling when one’s parents seem to have done just fine without it.
Because the Islands are home to the children, bringing them out for a ‘better life’ may amount to uprooting them. Instead, Charkha has designed an innovative Project that has conceptually never been tried before. We are gradually bringing together the different support groups to strengthen the Andaman Eco Network that support the children as members of Eco Clubs in a virtual network that keeps them linked with the world outside – for communicating, sharing and accessing information.
This is done using media of different kinds creatively – making it as enjoyable as possible. Children are encouraged, with competitions and prizes, to write essays and poems and make drawings which are offered to local and national newspapers for publication (and local newspaper editors have been very encouraging). A team from All India Radio, Port Blair recorded children’s experiences and views on environmental conservation and broadcast them in half-hourly episodes.
These support groups of the Andaman Eco Network along with the Eco Clubs are an interestingly varied lot. Tremendous response has been received from the most unlikely sources: the Government officials, the Panchayati Raj members, parents, school Principals and other teachers; and the print and audio media. One more local group is in the process of being included: shopkeepers and local traders, who contribute to the alarming rise in the use of polythene in the absence of Waste Management plans that only worsen the situation of garbage dumps in different spots amid the pristine natural beauty of the Islands.
The senior officials of the Wildlife & Forest Department and the Education Department as well as the Panchayat members have assured their support to keep the initiative going in the coming years as the Pilot is scaled up to include other islands and schools to evolve the Andaman Eco Network into a Movement; of awareness, pride and proactive action by the local communities, led by the children, to protect the natural heritage of the Islands.
