S Siddaraju

This Grant was Terminated by IFA and the Grantee is ineligible to apply to IFA in the future.

Siddaraju is one of the most appreciated teachers in the region. With a history of being a single, highly committed teacher in the school, he has engaged with the parent community at a personal level building rapport and winning their confidence to ensure that children attend school regularly. With his untiring efforts, he has managed to implement activity based learning in the school which has given him national recognition.

Given his very strong community network, his project focuses on using local folk art resources to train children in movement and song based art forms. He has identified Kolata, a rhythmic and rigorous folk form that would be used to train children to exercise their bodies and experience the flow of music. Practicing it on a regular basis, he hopes, that it will bring a sense of discipline among children and an understanding of the rhythmic beats of the form. He would then select poems from curricular texts that have a certain compositional metric built into it, which can then be adapted to Kolata. Using the playfulness of the form, Siddaraju plans to facilitate learning of poetry. Tatva Padas (songs of wisdom) is another form that is prevalent in the region. He would invite Tatva Pada singers to school and run a series of workshops to teach children some of the popular songs and trigger discussions around them. The nine month engagement will conclude with a celebratory valedictory with the artists, children and the parent community coming together. 

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