Ujwal UV

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA will engage fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students of Government Higher Primary School in Ulayibettu, Dakshina Kannada district with the project titled – Maavu Naavu (Mango and Us). The project will explore the art-integrated learning possibilities by considering the Mango and its ecosystem, and connecting it to their curriculum in languages and environmental science. Ujwal UV will be the Coordinator for this project. 

Ujwal UV is a theatre practitioner from Dakshina Kannada district. He has a Diploma in Theatre Arts from Ninasam. He has been working with various theatre groups across Karnataka. Kalabhi is a theatre and visual arts organisation started by Ujwal and his team which facilitates theatre workshops, puppet shows, and visual art classes for children. Ujwal has presented papers on theatre in education at conferences organised by arts organisations in Mangalore and Udupi districts. Given his experience he is best placed to be the Project Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA.      

Government Higher Primary School in Ulayibettu village is situated amidst a mango grove which is utilised as an outdoor classroom for students. This experiential learning platform is created as a space for students to connect with the surrounding environment and learn from it. In this project, fourth, fifth and sixth grade students will explore the ecosystem of the Mango and its distribution. The project is divided into four phases over one year and three months with activities and workshops in each phase designed to explore the life cycle of mango. In the first phase, students will visit the mango grove and collect songs and stories from the workers at the grove. They will visit Pilikula Biological Park and observe and document the relationship between the mango flower pollination and honey bees. Ujwal and his team will also engage students with environmental songs and performance songs after each of these visits.

In the second phase, Ujwal will invite a nature conservationist and a botanist to conduct an interactive and creative workshop. Students will be engaged in regular theatre activities and games like mango pickle game, word building riddles, treasure hunts, and finding the local names for the different varieties of mangoes. In the next activity, students will walk through the mango grove and observe how the mango flowers change into mango seeds. They will count the number of seeds and draw pictures of these flowers and seeds. 

Students will visit the nearby mango warehouse and learn about the scientific process involved in transforming a raw mango into the delicious ripe fruit in the third phase. They will be engaged with the arts activities at the mango warehouse by resource persons. Ujwal will encourage them to connect all their learnings to lessons from their languages and environmental science curriculum. In the last phase, they will present all their findings through a series of performances. Ujwal, with the support from the Headmaster, is planning to showcase this project at the cluster schools in and around Mangalore south division in Dakshina Kannada district.    

The outcome of the project will be a series of performances in the presence of school staff and villagers. The deliverables to IFA with the final report will include still and video documentation of the process, and the performance.

This project suitably addresses the framework of IFA’s Arts Education programme in the manner in which it attempts to help students connect their school curriculum to the stories from the regions they inhabit and communities they live with.

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.