The district introduced them to the world of knowledge, and migrant children are now set to return the favour by giving the people here a taste of their ethnic/native delicacies.
Roshni, an innovative project run by the district administration for enhancing the educational performance of migrant children, is set to go beyond the realm of education by bringing out a recipe book of local delicacies of its beneficiary students from eight States and even Nepal.
The book titled Ruchibedhangal will be released at a cultural exchange programme to be held as part of the Roshni project at the Changampuzha Cultural Centre at Edappally on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 12 noon. District Collector S. Suhas will inaugurate the event.
“The migrant students participating in the event will bring home-cooked food, which will be displayed at the venue before being distributed among people at the end of it,” said C.K. Prakash, general coordinator, Roshni.
The occasion will also mark the launch of another unique initiative by migrant children in the form of a tabletop calendar. The calendar will feature pictures drawn by these children based on important festivals back home with short descriptions.
This is for the first time such initiatives and even a grand cultural exchange programme are being organised as part of Roshni, which is into its third phase now.
“We held school-level cultural programmes during Onam but had to postpone the cultural exchange programme initially owing to floods and then on account of the Ernakulam bypoll. The event will feature folk songs and dances by migrant children,” said Mr. Prakash.
The project, the brainchild of former District Collector K. Mohammed Y. Safirulla, was introduced on a pilot basis in four schools during the 2017-18 academic year before it was extended to 20 schools in the year after. The project now covers 38 government and aided schools and 1,200 migrant students.
It effectively embraced the code-switching pedagogic strategy whereby the speaker alternates between two or more languages or language varieties, including graphic (visual) learning, in the context of a single conversation to help migrant students overcome the language barrier.
It was the only project from Kerala to be short-listed among the 30 innovative projects for the Prime Minister’s Annual Award for excellence in innovative idea/scheme/project last year.
