Mallesha M

Mallesha will use the arts to create awareness about the social and cultural issues that surround the school and the community, with a particular emphasis on female absenteeism and child marriage. Organizing his students into a variety of art clubs, such as literature, drama and cinema clubs (and many more), Mallesha will steer them towards a three part process: gathering knowledge and information about school-related issues with the help of external resources, followed by the clubs working independently and with each other to shape art-based interventions, such as creating a script and staging a play, or screening a film, etc., and finally, to directly engage with the larger community through an arts camp. Alongside these activities, Mallesha will organize cluster, block and district level trainings and workshops for teachers and students on issues of social justice through the medium of the arts. He will invite artists to work with students and teachers to create a platform for dialogue with the parent community in sensitising them to gender equity and the need for girl children to complete schooling.

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