Apple Buds Academy

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA will engage students of classes fifth to eight grades of Apple Buds Academy, in Kangpokpi district, Manipur. This 18 month project titled Dreams Beyond Textbooks and Echoes of the Earth hopes to reconnect students with the ecological and cultural heritage of their region through arts-integrated learning. The project emphasises bilingual learning in Thadou and English, intergenerational dialogue with community elders, and the development of teachers as facilitators of a culturally responsive, place-based pedagogy. For this project, Haokam Kipgen will be the signatory and Lhingneineng Tracey Kipgen will serve as facilitator.

Apple Buds Academy, established in 2013, currently enrolls approximately 500 students, a significant proportion of who come from farming families in the surrounding Thadou Kuki and other tribal communities. The school is closely aligned with the National Education Policy and incorporates activity-based, experiential learning as a central pedagogical feature. Given its experience in arts-integrated and community-rooted educational activities, Apple Buds Academy is well placed to be the Project Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA.

The school has demonstrated exceptional institutional resilience. When the ethnic conflict of May 2023 displaced thousands of families across Manipur and disrupted schooling across the hill districts, Apple Buds Academy continued to function without certainty of fee income or salaries. It gave free admission to 152 displaced students and, in collaboration with the Zonal Education Officer, Kangpokpi, established a school for 47 relief camp children from Nursery to Class III, sourcing books from its own resources and continuing to pay teachers through 2025. This record reflects an institution whose stated values are operationally real, and whose community rootedness provides a sound foundation for the proposed initiative.

The project is structured around five interconnected components. The first, a Story and Song Collection Drive, will identify and engage community elders, folk singers, and storytellers to document oral narratives and songs that carry ecological knowledge. They will explore stories and songs centered on animals, forests, rivers, and farming, and on symbolic motifs central to the life of Kangpokpi such as the hornbill, bamboo, sacred hills, and river spirits. Students will participate as active researchers, using mobile phones and cameras to record narratives, and will transcribe, translate, and categorise the materials collected. Teachers will be trained through this process to recognise oral tradition as a pedagogical tool to generate content for the curriculum.

The second component, Eco-Theatre and Song Circles, will bring these collected narratives into the classroom as performance. Folk singers, local theatre artists, and environmentalists will lead workshops in which students learn to interpret and embody the collected stories and songs through theatre and music. Classroom activities will integrate these performances into language and social science subjects: teachers will use the collected stories to teach vocabulary, grammar, and comprehension in both English and Thadou, while social science lessons will explore themes of conservation, community ethics, and seasonal ritual. The third component, Flora and Fauna Mapping, will extend learning into the landscape. Organised into groups under teacher supervision, students will conduct field visits to nearby hills, forests, and gardens identifying, photographing, and documenting medicinal and culturally significant plants. Species such as the Sangai deer, Siroi lily, bamboo, and medicinal herbs including Anisomeles indica (Thoiding Amuba) and Brucea javanica (Heining) will be documented through field journals, illustrated posters, and digital ecological maps that link folk narratives to specific plants and animals. These materials will name species in both their local and scientific designations, record traditional uses and cultural significance, and trace the locations where they are found or where the associated stories are set.

The fourth component, the Living Memory Garden, will provide the project with its most tangible and enduring physical output. In a designated school space, students will plant native species bamboo, Siroi lily, medicinal herbs each tied to a story or song collected in component one. Every plant will be labeled with its local name, ecological information, and the narrative or lyric that gave it its place in the project. The garden will serve as a permanent site for nature walks, storytelling circles, and cross-curricular engagement, transforming the school grounds into a living archive of ecological and cultural memory.

The concluding component, the Festival of Earth Voices, will be a public community celebration bringing together the threads of nature, culture, creativity, and learning woven across the project. The school will be transformed into a living gallery. Illustrated posters and digital ecological maps will be displayed; Eco-Theatre performances and Song Circles will fill the programme; and the Living Memory Garden will be at the heart of the space. 

The outcome of the project will be a series of performances, an ecological archive, a community celebration, and a Living Memory Garden planted with native species tied to folk narratives. The Project Coordinator's deliverables to IFA, along with the final report will be photographs, video documentation, bilingual learning materials, and a field archive of oral narratives and ecological maps

This project suitably addresses the framework of IFA's Arts Education programme in the manner in which it attempts to connect students and schools to the cultural knowledge of the places they inhabit. By placing the child's own landscape, language, and community knowledge at the centre of the educational experience, the project builds not only ecological literacy but emotional resilience, cultural identity, and a lasting sense of belonging among students who have experienced significant disruption.

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm and document it through an Implementation Memorandum. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees.

This Foundation Project is made possible in partnership with InterGlobe Foundation.