T.R.K. Upper Primary School at Vengad near Valanchery witnessed the launch of a unique project named ‘LoreKeepers’ over the weekend. The project aims at conserving folklores and folksongs that are disappearing with the passing of the older generation.
A voluntary organisation named Archival and Research Project (ARPO) has taken up the project with the support of a Bengaluru-based charitable body named Faizal and Shabana Foundation.
Schoolchildren are being roped in to conserve folklores and the spoken wisdom of the passing generations. The students will have to identify some interesting people having knowledge of some folklores, get them speak up the folklores, and shoot with their mobile phones.
“Our children interacted creatively with the elderly people of Vengad region during a two-day summer camp held over the weekend,” said school headmaster P.K. Subhash.
The elderly people who shared their experiences with the children were honoured at the camp. “We are trying to convince the children how important it is to conserve folklores of the region,” he said.
Mr. Subhash said the camp helped the students strengthen their relations with society at large. It also helped them widen their perspectives, he added.
Hundreds of village stories and songs were collected as part of the LoreKeepers project.
Faizal and Shabana Foundation has been promoting educational programmes with the objective of bringing up the marginalized sections. Its adoption of Government Vocational Higher Secondary School for Girls at Nadakkavu has been a model emulated by several other agencies. The Nadakkavu model has become a catchphrase in government school campus development in the country.
