Vibrant online platform for children winds up

‘Kuttikalude Charchavedi,’ launched last year, hosted discussions by students and talks by experts

Kuttikalude Charchavedi, an online collective formed by four schoolgirls during the pandemic last year, has brought down the curtain on its activities with a podcast on a translation of Anton Chekhov’s ‘The Bet’ in the voices of students.

The target is to have podcasts by 100 students on the Malayalam translation of the work by V.R. Santhosh, says Abhirami S., one of the girls behind the initiative. The collective has brought out as an e-book of the work, using free software, as well as an audiobook.

Like other children, Abhirami and her friends Devika Santhosh, Gouri Priya P.S., and Asna S.N., then class 10 students of Government Tribal High School, Meenankal, were stuck at home last year. Bored, unable to meet each other, the close friends reminisced about their school life, the discussions during the school mid-day meals, and wondered if they could be revived online. The girls started holding online discussions. On the suggestion of a former teacher, they decided to open up the platform to other children too. Adults, they realised, had platforms to hear and express themselves, but not children.