The very young create art

by Susmita Gongba, age 10

3 March 2017. We left from our school to go to “Kinderpillar Preschool”  at about 10  in the morning. We did not know the location so, we called Pallav sir for the  location. This information helped us get to the pre-school pretty quick. We entered the gate. The pre-school was very clean, beautiful, full of green grass and  playthings. I liked  the place a lot. We were told to wait as the students were having lunch. Bhagwati Ma’am talked with the principal of the school for some time. While Bhagwati Ma’am talked with the principal,  we went to see Prathamesh and Vidheha play. The principal of Kinderpillar called and said that some of us could do the workshop in the junior kindergarten. Nitya dada, Prathamesh, Vidheha, Khusbu Ma’am, Bhagwati Ma’am and I went there.

Another workshop was to be conducted for senior kindergarten so Utkrishta dada, Kusma didi, Niva, Pukar and Bhawana Ma’am went to senior kindergarten workshop. I do not know what happened in the other section but our session was full of fun.

There were many students in the classroom. When we entered the class, the children told us their names one by one. We told them that we were here for an art workshop and that we could create artwork for the good of everyone. After talking for sometime, we started drawing. Since the junior kindergarten had a ton of students we divided them into different groups. My group had 6 cute young people and they were all drawing really fast. Nitya dada’s group had 4 students. Our group was really fast and  we covered the whole paper with pencil and color drawings very fast. Nitya dada’s group was slower and it took them a lot of time to finish their artwork.

In the third group, one child was drawing and another child accidently scratched his artwork with pencil so he was very angry. Khusbu Ma’am  lightened his mood and gave him another paper to draw on. I liked an artwork of Rapunzel, she had really long hair, it reminded me that we would like freedom.

On my side, first I made a snowman but it looked  bad so I erased it and drew a bird because they can fly in the sky where there is nothing to block their flight. Nitya dada made different kinds of drawings. The boy who was working with Khusbu Ma’am also made nice artwork. It had mountains, trees and other  nature related things. We deserve to enjoy good clean environment in our lives. Soon all of the art work was finished. Some of the children were jumping, some were running and some were  saying that they were doing ‘yoga’. I asked my group members to write their names on the back side of the paper.

Then their dance teacher arrived. We requested him to let us play the flute so  some of us could  dance with  Kinderpillar children. The teacher agreed and Nitya dada, Utkrishta dada, Pukar dada and Kusma didi played the songs on their flutes while Neeva and I danced. First they played ’Resham firiri’ and I danced. As the students did not know how to dance to Resham firiri we had to teach them how to dance. They copied our moves. After dancing to Resham Firiri, we sang ‘Mero sano kharayo’.  Having had a lot of fun, and made a lot of artwork related to the theme of the right to live a good life with the wonderful beautiful children we returned back to Spiny Babbler.

Told by Utkrishta Mulmi

In the senior kindergarten section, my group had three students only so we did not have to divide them into different groups. My group  made great artwork. They made a playground, a play dinosaur and many other things that children should be able to enjoy in their lives. All the students in my group did their work  themselves with the help of Niva. Since they did not need any help from  Kusma,  Pukar or me, we made artwork on another sheet of paper. We made the playground of Kinderpillar where children enjoy the right to education, good nutrition, love, and care.