ONGOING PROJECTS | 2017 Onwards
Education Outreach Project
The EOP has been imagined as an over-arching programme to involve younger Ladakhis in a participatory mode to talk about their heritage and develop workshops, interactions and art and heritage resources for education and dissemination. It takes a new sub project each year.
Over the years, a need has constantly been felt to develop a platform for young professionals from Ladakh so that they could be involved with various aspects of their own cultural heritage and eventually become opinion makers. The Education Outreach Programme (EOP) has been developed keeping these needs in mind:
1. Primary community engagement – schools, both government and private
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Need to engage with the Ladakhi community at an early stage, school children often do not get an opportunity to learn or interact with their local heritage as part of their curriculum;
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Opportunity to create an orientation towards art, design and architecture so that students can explore these fields as career options as they grow up.
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To direct understanding of heritage, both tangible and intangible to local eco-systems, explore links with socio-cultural transformations and create perception and appreciation of materials and processes.
2. Building a platform for youth to engage with heritage
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A large group of students from Ladakh seek higher education in cities such as Jammu, Chandigarh and New Delhi along with other cities and universities across India.
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Over the last decade Ladakhi students have started pursuing fields such as painting, sculpture, applied art, art history, museology, design and architecture and conservation. But there is a lack of opportunity or platform to return and use these skills back home as only a few organizations such as LAMO, HCHF or TF-Loti are working on the field
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A space is required for not only critical engagement but also field-based action, which AAI is keen on developing
3. Building a teaching aid and resource for Heritage Education
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Apart from creating opportunities for research and action, it is also important to have a tangible resource, which brings together international expertise along with local practical knowledge in an accessible and enjoyable interactive format.
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The teaching aid is being developed, complementing in depth research and years of experience of hands-on action with fun, interesting, easy to learn form, based on contemporary pedagogical models.
The EOP has been imagined as an over-arching programme to involve younger Ladakhis in a participatory mode to talk about their heritage and the need to preserve historic buildings, art treasures, crafts and literature. It focuses on developing workshops, interactions and development of art and heritage resources for education and dissemination.
Further, the delicate ecological balance of Ladakh, presently threatened by various internal and external factors is inherently dependent upon its built heritage and cultural practices. Preserving and thinking about Ladakhi heritage will not only restore this balance, it will also connect contemporary concerns and issues of the present day Ladakhi society to learnings from the past in an attempt to secure their future.
The EOP has been piloted in Ladakhi Schools. It was important to share these ideas openly with children at an early stage so that they appreciate and understand the need to care for their heritage. It is hoped that in the long run they would become the local voice for saving Ladakhi heritage and its traditions and be passionate about their culture and its upkeep.
To read the yearly reports of the Education Outreach Initiatives in 2017 and 2019 click here
Download Pilot project report, NID report, Report on Skurbuchan prepared by Nishant Upadhyay, Films by NID on EOP at Skurbuchan.
Teacher Orientation workshop in 2017 at the Central Asian Museum, Leh.
Rebo-making workshop at the Puga Nomadic Residential School, Changthang
The science of nomadic tents with primary school kids of Puga Nomadic Residential school.
Teachers work with local materials, understand their properties to include in lesson plans.
Understanding pre-history through Petroglyphs.
Children of the Nomadic Residential School, Puga, Changthang after the Education Outreach Workshop.
Workshop on creating school museums in Lamdon Public School, Khaltse
Working with local clay and learning about its beneficial qualities for local architecture.