Muskaan

This Foundation Project titled DNT Children’s Lens implemented by IFA will engage a group of 40 students between sixth and eighth grade from denotified* tribes Pardhi and Kanjar studying at the Jeevan Shiksha Pahal, a school run by Muskaan in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh in order to document their oral histories, music and specific vocabulary through a series of multidisciplinary activities. The project hopes to include some students who are in this age group but are studying in junior classes starting their academic journey late. For this project Shivani Taneja who works on pedagogy and programmes of Muskaan, will be the Project Facilitator and signatory. Muskaan is a non-government organisation working for the education of marginalised children in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh (MP). The organisation works with vulnerable children and youth living in bastis in Bhopal on the issues of education, identity, violence, health, and nutrition. The school Jeevan Shiksha Pahal, is registered for Classes 1 to 8, and has 150 children enrolled under the MP Board. All the children who come to study are from vulnerable social groups, primarily tribal groups such as Gonds, Agariyas and denotified tribes Pardhis, Kanjars. Apart from the school, Muskaan also conducts educational activities through learning centres in the urban bastis and provides access to libraries to children from 3 to 18 years and onward. Given their experience Muskaan is best placed to be the Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA.  

This 18 months project has two primary objectives. While the first wishes to document the vocabulary, stories, songs and regional music of the Pardhi and Kanjar tribes, the second envisions creating awareness among children about The Criminal Tribal Act. Collectively and in groups, children would be facilitated in going to the communities to record oral histories, songs and specific vocabulary linked to their lives. This would be interspersed through training in doing interviews, taking quality photographs and voice recording. At least five trips would be made to each of the two communities. Muskaan would like to see a community representative as an assistant facilitator the project. This gesture not only preserves the autonomy of tribal children but also motivates them to participate in a more positive way. The details of the work plan clarify how different forms of art can be effectively integrated in this journey. 

Children would be facilitated to express their lives influenced directly or indirectly by their identity through drawings and stories. Thus, livelihoods, education, protection, experiences in the public spaces would be opened up in a series of classroom activities over a period of one month. In this journey, they will collectively read some other stories reflecting lives of marginalised children or communities. They will explore writing skills and overcoming the silences in conversations and text where difficult areas or non-mainstream voices are not acknowledged. 

Muskaan’s strong relationship with the community serves as a bottom-up approach in building and strengthening children’s collectives to enhance their agency in society. While programme staff visited this school in 2019, a group of articulate young girls and boys, belonging to adivasi communities narrated their experience of coming to school. Though each one of them had their own unique story, the underlying thread was their persistence. Persistence to keep fighting for their right to education and a personal insistence of not allowing factors, such as poverty, gender, social and cultural expectations and disappointments from the mainstream world, determined the course of their lives. Muskaan, to them, is a huge support system.

The community elders are considered to be critical to this project as resource persons who have their traditional knowledge and cultures in their memories. Additionally, Muskaan has identified Kanak Shashi, a visual artist, Narendra, a Pardhi youngster, who has been trained in photography and film-making, Jeenu Pawar and Preeti Dhurve, a Pardhi and Gond theatre facilitators, to be part of this project. 

The outcome of the project will be three performances, a publication and a process document. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be photographs, the copies of the publication, the process document and video documentation of the entire project.

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. 

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 project is made possible with support from Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company.  

*Denotified Tribes are the tribes in India that were listed originally under the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 as Criminal Tribes and "addicted to the systematic commission of non-bailable offences." Once a tribe became "notified" as criminal, all its members were required to register with the local magistrate, failing which they would be charged with a "crime" under the Indian Penal Code. The Criminal Tribes Act was repealed in 1949 and thus 'de-notified' the tribal communities.