A village narrates stories for children

Initiative by school to relieve students of stress of online classes

Children of today often miss the experience of listening to stories narrated by their grandparents. ‘Oru Gramam Katha Parayunnu’, an initiative by Jinarajadas A.L.P School in Marad, aims at giving children this special gift, especially in the time of the pandemic and online classes. Under the initiative, teachers of the school identify elderly persons in their locality and make them narrate a story for kids. Stories from mythology, history, the Panchatantra, western fables or even folklore such as Vadakkan Pattu will be presented to children. Story tellers are mostly commoners who have a flair to tell stories in the way children like them. The programme kicked off recently with P.M. Gangadharan, a retired teacher, and Mohammed Perambra, a theatre and film personality, narrating stories. “Story telling is recorded by teachers and sent to students’ WhatsApp groups. We have identified separate days for students of each class for the story-telling session,” said E.M. Pushparajan, Headmaster of the school.