A dream concept shared by me at the Impact
Evaluation Workshop of Entertainment-Education and Mass Media Behavior Change
Campaigns held at Mexico in May 2016 is bearing fruits in India.
After taking over as the CEO of Children's
Film Society, India (CFSI), I was instrumental in taking filmmaking to the
doors of schools and children from marginalised sections so as to bring about a
behavioural change in these youngsters.
The Development Impact Evaluation (DIME)
delivered an impact evaluation workshop in Mexico City, Mexico, aligning
researchers, practitioners and producers from entertainment hubs including
Hollywood, Nollywood and Bollywood to design and evaluate behavior change
campaigns under a new DIME program: Entertainment Education.
I was one of the speakers at the workshop
in Mexico. My presentation on the concept of Little Directors and bringing
children from the marginalised sections to the mainstream through creativity,
which in turn impacts their behavioural pattern through communication, received
appreciation and encouragement from delegates representing renowned
universities from different parts of the world as well as executives from the
Impact Evaluation wing of World Bank.
When the same concept was introduced in
Patna recently, my dreams got wings. It was an experience worth remembering for
children of various schools as they laughed, clapped and jumped in ecstasy when
they watched a series of children films at the three-day Children’s Film
Festival organised by CFSI and Vishwa Samvad Kendra Patna from September 7 to 9.
I am working on taking this concept to more number of villages across Bihar in
the days to come.
Hundreds of children from various schools in
Patna enjoyed movies such as ‘Gopi Gawaiyaa Bagha Bajaiyaa’ by Shilpa Ranade, ‘Ek Tha Bhujang’
directed by Mohinder Pratap Singh, Rajan Khosla’s ‘GATTU’, ‘Kaphal’ directed by
Batul Mukhtiyar, ‘Pappu Ki Pagdandi’ directed by Seema Desai, ‘Krish, Trish
& Batliboy’ directed by Munjal Shroff and ‘Tilakraj Shetty’. A special screening was organised for the children of Rainbow Homes
orphanage apart from the regular screenings.
Through these film shows, I try to ignite the creativity of children
by exposing them to entertainment films made for them from all across the world.
Through the Little Directors concept, we are looking forward to teach
film-making to children under the brand.
The interaction
with more than 100 students of Rainbow Foundation and the experience in
conducting this workshop was worthwhile and fruitful. These children are from
the marginalised sections of the society; have either been orphaned or disowned
by their parents. I was surprised to see that these children bonded positively with
the organisers and showed keen interest in unleashing their creativity. We realised
that these children can seriously take up creative art forms like film making
to shape their future.
It was
very encouraging for us to see that children outside the normal school system
also showed interest in creativity. What was even more surprising was that 80
per cent of the children from Rainbow Foundation were girls, who were keen to
know more about the Little Directors, which spoke about young children making
films and winning awards at the international platform.
CFSI will
soon start holding workshops for children of Bihar to impart the knowledge of
this art form.
We will conduct
a five-day workshop under the Little Directors concept on film making in
various villages in Bihar. Children in groups will make theme-based films,
which will be screened in the respective villages. The World Bank Impact
Evaluation team will evaluate the behavioural change and the impact movie
making has had on these children after six months. Another evaluation will be
carried out after the next few months to again assess impact it would have had
on the lives of these children.
We are
hopeful that there’ll be a huge participation in this exercise to bring out the
creativity of these children.
Films for
children have a message and huge impact on the growth of a child. It's a medium
that helps develop learning of a child through an audio-visual mechanism. There
is huge audience for children movies in the country. Filmmaking as a medium
helps cultivate the creativity of a young child.
To sum it
up, I feel that this concept is the next level of making a real-time change in
the personality development as well as career development of children.
