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Three-day children festival begins tomorrow

By Shazia Hasan 2016-02-25
KARACHI: The Children`s Literature Festival (CLF), including the Teacher`s Literature Festival, organised by the Idara-i-Taleem-o-Aagahi and the Oxford University Press (OUP) in collaboration with the Karachi Youth Initiative, the Canadian High Commission of Pakistan, the Open Society Foundation, the Dawood Foundation and the government of Sindh, will be held from Feb 26 to 28 at the Dawood Public School.

The three-day festival will see the coming together of authors, writers, poets, education experts, artists, singers and actors for providing a wholesome learning environment with fun and enjoyment for young ones of all schools especially government and low-cost private schools and their families.

`Education just doesn`t come from textbooks. At the CLF we try to create a whole environment of learning through various mediums like singers creating music during story sessions, artists drawing murals with children, scientific experiments, workshops, meetings and sessions with children`s writers, including 12-year-old author Hamza Ahmed, etc,` said Baela Raza Jamil, trustee/ adviser at the Idara-i-Taleem-o-Aagahi during a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Wednesday.

`The CLF started as a branch off from the Karachi Literature Festival with the idea that there was so little really being done for kids here. And now with six directors from all over Pakistan this nonprofit institution has become more of a social movement spreading from Karachi to other provinces, cities and regions where the child is the VIP,` she said,while adding that so far 480,000 children and teachers had attended the 22 CLFs held across Pakistan over the past four years.

Sharing her observation of children, CLF co-founder and OUP managing director Ameena Saiyid said that they learnt through fun activities and if they were allowed to ask questions. `The CLF provides them the opportunity for both of these. Critical thinking develops by asking questions and reflecting on their answers and getting involved in various activities. We would be holding workshops to show and involve them in developing a book, including bookbinding.

Then we have invited an author from Hong Kong, who is also going to show them the importance of saving and spending wisely,` she shared.

Pakistani-Canadian children`s writer Rukhsana Khan, who specially flew in from Canada for the CLF, said that the books she read as a child changed her life. `Those books helped me survive my childhood and now I write for children of all cultures from all over the world to help them through their childhood,` she said while adding that she would be talking about the 13 books that she had authored for children at the CLF.

Writer, author and artist Rumana Husain said that all over the world exposure to different experiences, literature and poetry were used to open children`s minds but it was a pity that here in Pakistan we were sacrificing creativity and wonder with our obsession with textbooks. `There is hardly anything done specially for children here. We don`t even have a private television channel for children here. There is a dearth of alternative education material for children here other than their textbooks, which is sadbecause today the state of education here is such that a class-five student is unable to do class-three math,` she said.

Replying to a question about change in venue as the CLF used to be held at the Arts Council of Pakistan until now, Baela Raza said that it was due to constructionwork being done there, making the venue dangerousforchildren.

Another question about the costs of books available at the CLF, Baela Raza said that they would be heavily subsidised to be made affordable for all pockets.The CLF will open at 9.30am and go on till 5.30pm on Friday and Saturday.

The last day of the CLF will be dedicated to teachers as it will see the holding of the Teacher`s Literature Festival, which would be more workshop-oriented and carry on from 10am to 4pm.