2023 Recent Events

We began the first of series of training and workshops for rural youth on climate change. U. Ravi Kumar of Mysuru provided a broad purview of climate change causes and trends and also contextualised it in terms of the youth’s own experiences. P.K. Sajan showed some clippings of adverse climate change events that had taken place across the world and in India. Badri, Muthu and Vinay shared the slide show of Punarchith’s study of climate change in Chamarajanagar district. On the 3rd morning, the youth visited Angarike Maala and were participants in the ‘experiential learning’ about issues related to land restoration, conservation, and sustainable agriculture—as part of the mitigation and resilience strategies for climate change. Ratheesh Picharody provided an overview of how to conduct to assess the impact of climate change in a village and the whole group of youth undertook a review of Nagavalli village. Later, they presented the themes that each group was allocated and discussed the importance of each issue. On the evening of the 3rd, the youth learners, some children and adults from Nagavalli and Punarchith team members went on a procession around the village and mobilised village residents to participate in a public meet and candle light vigil for restoring the Nagavalli lake.

Between April 20th and 24th, 17 children (mostly from Chamarajanagar and Tumkur) were accompanied by Suma and Vinay and they spent four adventurous days at the HONNEMARDU CAMP, organised by Nomito and Swamy. The children not only camped out on their own, but also learned to swim, boat and cook on their own. Discussions and inputs were focused on facilitating them to overcome their fears, hesitation and shyness and to develop team work and leadership skills.

In April 2023, a group of 17 students associated directly and indirectly with Punarchith attended a 4-day training at Indian Institute for Adventure Applications (IIFAA), Honnemardu. The focus of the training in the wilderness at IIFAA emphasizes outdoor learning. Out of the 4 days camp, the initial two and half days was spent in orienting them to various tasks such as trekking, finding paths in forest, swimming, coracle riding, teamwork and coordination. The students then had to use all the skills that they learnt for “The team Survival task”, where-in the team had to spend a night on an isolated island without an adult accompanying them. The task required them to prioritise, strategize, and be there for each other. Through the activity, it was interesting to see the learning arc of all the students. This was visible during the debrief sessions that were followed after each activity. At the end of the island survival activity, there was marked growth in their confidence and the way they expressed and participated in the debrief sessions. They learnt the importance of communication and strength of team work through experiential learning. A few skills that they learnt through the four-day training were taking initiative, leadership skills and creating lasting bonds.

See the video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxoLB-UZT9I