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Children present a new take on India

Preeti Mehra

IT is not the usual kaleidoscope of the country and yet it is a coherent vision of India through the eyes of 20,000 children across the land. It is India By Kids, a unique online contest for school children in the country sponsored by Intel's Asia Educat ion Group and executed by Pitara Kids Network, an interactive Web site for children.

This first national-level Internet competition for kids up to class IX was launched in December last. It required teams of school children or any group of children to develop imaginative project ideas on various aspects of the country and present them th rough the medium of an online Web-based project.

The winners were announced at the British Council, New Delhi. The first prize in the school category went to Father Agnel Multipurpose School, Mumbai, for its project on the Staples of India and the second and third prize went to Meera Model School, New Delhi, for their two projects Indian Market and Naari -- an Indian woman. In the open category, where individual groups of children could compete, the first prize went to a Hyderabad-based project on child labour, the second to a Mumbai-based project on the Dharavi slums and the third to a Thiruvananthapuram-based project on the Andaman Islands.

However, it is not the prizes alone, which included a shield, a computer system from Intel and a certificate, that has given the participating school children the motivation for such creativity. The medium too has added to the excitement. In fact the com bination of the subject, the medium and the opportunity to create has left the over 2,000 participating teams with a great learning experience.

The themes taken up by the winning teams and those shortlisted revealed that children in the country have their ears to the ground and question the goings-on more than adults realise. For instance K.V. Malleshwaram School, Bangalore, in the nomination ca tegory worked on the theme of our `Healing Heritage'. Besides taking a look at ancient and tribal methods of traditional healing, they questioned the existing healthcare system and wondered why it has not garnered our rich heritage to reach the Health Fo r All goal.

Similarly PSBBSS School, Chennai, again in the nomination category, through its project `Recipe for Life' took a look at the basic elements -- earth, fire, air, water and space. Through them they discovered the duality of life and their uses in the India n context. For instance wind has several significances -- the wind instrument that makes music, the mythological vayu, the giver of energy (wind energy) etc. Fire, too is used in many ways -- to purify, to incinerate the dead, to build, to conquer etc.

``A child's understanding of India is based mostly on an accumulation of dry facts -- population, area, natural resources, etc, all neatly labelled and categorised into boxes such as history, geography or demographics. The India By Kids competition hopes to change this narrow, boxed-in approach to India,'' says Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pitara, Ajay Jaiman.

While Intel's Regional Program Manager, Asia Education Group, Debjani Ghosh, comments on the technology aspect, ``It is our continuous endeavour to challenge the next generation to use technology effectively, continue the spirit of innovation, creativity and discovery, and we believe we have been able to achieve that with the India By Kids project.''