School of Nature

04/10/2021

Hi people. School of Nature seeks support to make an animation video on a story we did on the hands of a migrant labourer. Anybody willing to offer their skills as an animator and designer?

Pic courtesy - Canva

11/07/2021

We had received much love and appreciation for 'Kuni Hikaka's House' (English) published last year. We are now happy to share with you, the bilingual version of the book in Kuvi and English. The book is in one of the dialects of Kuvi spoken in parts of Rayagada, Odisha.
Kuvi is spoken by Kuvi loko and it is not just a language but a worldview. We tried our best and will grow as we write. The script is in Odia, since Kuvi doesn't have a script of its own.

Download the book from: https://www.travellersuniversity.org/publications

Story by: Pritu Vatsa
Illustrations by: Anjali Joy
Kuvi translation: Padmabati Hikaka and Padmabati Hikaka
Editing, design & layout: Ashik Krishnan

Published by Travellers' University and School of Nature

05/04/2021

Resource person and skills support

(Offline work for few hours in a month)
- Digital illustrators
- Video-photo editor
- Digital compilers
- Oriya-English-Oriya translators
- Botanist and zoologist to help formulate our bio-diversity documentation activities with children

On field for few weeks
- Architect trained in vernacular architecture.
- Artists interested and experienced in doing wall paintings.
- Volunteer for documentation.

Preferably volunteers interested in learning from the indigenous communities and has a prior experience of working with rural communities.

Material support

- A handed-down bike and cycle
- A decently working laptop or tablet
- A hard disk to store images, videos and documented files
- Action/motion camera and a mic for documentation purpose
- Mini Projector and speaker
- Solar lamps

Financial support

Construction cost - Rs 50,000

Monthly support - Rs. 55,000 per month.
( 2 -3 people working full time on the project, develop further content, meet travel expenses, gather resources)

Whatever big or small you contribute, it will be a massive help. Even the smallest contribution matters. 100X100 = 10000 and so on.

E-mail - [email protected]
[email protected]

Social media handles

https://www.facebook.com/SchoolOfNatureOdisha
https://www.instagram.com/SchoolOfNatureOdisha

Bank details

UPI - prituvatsa12@okicici

Pritu
ICICI bank
A/c Number - 079901504290
IFSC code - ICIC0000799

The School of Nature envisages to integrate learning that takes into account the socio-cultural cont

17/03/2021

1. One of the major issues which needs to be addressed is how to engage the youth (boys). Their increasing disconnect to the land, forest and community as a whole has brought out a major question mark on the cultural and ecological existence of the community.Making the community more vulnerable to external market forces. Padma (villager and facilitator) says it's impossible to engage with them they don't listen to anyone. Like recently they wanted to build a cricket field in a patch filled with trees even though villagers after meeting requested and didn't give permission to cut the 3 old mango and jackfruit trees. They still did and were vocally rash in responding to the community.

2. Another is unchecked video - audio broadcast on television and mobile phone. It's deeply addictive and goes straight to the head into the brain of these young viewers. They are quite new to such form of strong audio-visual broadcast. And this kind of content is impacting the whole deeply rooted eco-spiritual culture and the way they use different faculties/senses. Also damaging and reducing their connect to nature and humans into a very materialist, objective and consumersit form.

But a ray of hope is making audio-visual which is meaningful, intresting and in their language. Saying this because recently when we screened the documentary I will not give you my dongar they were completely engrossed, were commenting and liked it. So making such content and showing such existing content is one solution.


Any suggestions?

Also support we need is a small projector and a speaker to be able to do it further. Last time I burrowed a friend's laptop which was not fit for a larger crowd. You can support us by giving away/buying a projector, speaker (old/new) or contribute for the same on g-pay prituvatsa12@okicici.

Thanks.

14/02/2021

Weekly haat is a place of exchange and interaction. And children wanted to go to a haat. Haat as a learning space, why not?There's so much to learn. We went to different stalls, saw what all is being sold, who is selling and who is buying. Learnt about varities of Sukhua (dry fish), met an Aaya from Niyamgiri who told us about the ornaments dongria kondhs wear.

Haat is an important part of kuvi culture. And was mostly a place of central xchange from Kondhs of different villages, hills etc. It was earlier dominated by Kuvi lokon but now there are many middleman on play.

31/01/2021

See you at 7:30 p.m. 👋

03/01/2021

Arti digging the root of a medicinal plant to prepare the bio-diversity register, after one of her nani (elder sister) from the village shared her wisdom of healing herbs.

Education is also strengthening the native healing systems.

28/12/2020

Welcome to the world of Kuni Hikaka!

Small, yet big things make the house of a Kondh child. House is not about a room or two, but is a place where culture and worldview grows. A Kondh house accommodates all. Coop for chicken, shed for cows, space for storing seeds, and more. Verandahs are connected and common. Rooms are for sleeping.

This e-book is an attempt to depict some of these elements from the Kondh housing, hoping to kindle a spark of connection with the non-Kondh readers as well.

This is a step towards designing contextual learning material, recording traditional knowledge systems and passing on the learnings to our friends and communities.

Download for free from: https://www.travellersuniversity.org/publications

Story: Pritu Vatsa
Illustrations: Anjali Joy
Editing, design and layout: Ashik Krishnan

Published by: School of Nature & Travellers' University

27/12/2020

Small yet big things makes up the house of a Kondh child. House is not just a room or two but a place where a culture and worldview grows. A Kondh house accomodates all. Coops for chicken, cowshed, space for goats and deity to rest and seeds to be safe. The colour red derived from a special kind of earth is quite prominent. And a lot more. Dm for a copy... It's copyleft🙂

Digitally published by beautiful souls at Travellers' University.

Releasing tomorrow. Dm for a copy. ✨

Link to support the initiative https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IZR-8MD6vECZ_ow8NgUaAwvA9qnDI7FU/view?usp=drivesdk

20/12/2020

Pic 1 - Reading and writing books in Kuvi (the first language).
Padma's grandmother agreed that these young children do not know Kuvi. In an attempt to let the language stay kindled, we tried reading, writing and talking with children. Now that there is a lockdown, we have more children. Children who go to residential schools often lose their grasp of the language.

Pic 2 - Local History of the village written and illustrated by the children.

04/12/2020

Conversation on the rice field on the shift in agriculture and education and how it leads to cultural and identity shift.

Padma's field had rice plantation work going on. It takes a lot of endurance to sit in the same position and do the work. The rice is transplanted on fields a little far. The use of urea and other chemicals are recent in this village.

Aaya (mother) with an unlit native Kendu (modern people might call it to***co) roll, says, “Once a man had less rice on the field. So he asked around and found this remedy. Probably he learned to use this from Bissamcuttack (nearby small town). And once he grew his rice with the urea in it, we all did. What one does, all do.”

“But what about that red worm which is the source of natural urea?” I ask. “It will die, right? The Kondhs believe in taking care of all; birds, worms, plants. And the soil is mother, right?”

Silence...