Gangadhara Naik

Gangadhara Naik is a Cluster Resource Person at Sirsi working on this project with the sixth grade students of the Government Higher Primary School, Gandhinagar. He is passionate about science lab activities and constantly looks for innovative ways to teach the science curriculum. Serving as cluster resource person, he and his colleagues work towards enriching the learning milieu of the schools by reaching out government and individual donors for support and funds. Given his interest in science he has also conducted several community awareness programmes, the problems with irrational beliefs and superstitions. He attended the arts integrated master resource training programme conducted by IFA this year, which triggered his interest to apply for this project.

His project intends to encourage students to read and write Chutuku Kavana, Kathana Kavana and Ashaya Kavana – three different forms of short poetry in Kannada literature - as a catalyst for sensory engagement. According to him, enabling children to explore different forms of poetry provides a strong foundation for improving their learning capabilities. He believes that this process of engagement with poetry will inspire the students to investigate into the depths of layered meanings of poetry as well as appreciate the visual imageries built through nuances in language. 

He plans a series of workshops on readings of poetry and has identified a group of writers who will aid him in the process. He will invite poets, writers, and theatre artists to conduct workshops on discussing, reading and writing these forms of poetry. Students will also learn to write some on their own. By the end of the grant period students will present many renderings of these forms in a festival organised by the school for the community. The outcomes thus will be a publication and these performances. The deliverables of the project to IFA will be images and audio-video documentation of their activities.  

This grant was made possible with support from Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore and Citi India.