Karadi Tales

ACK Media has been generating some very creative content in the area of Audio Books for children.

Karadi Tales, by ACK Media, was launched in December 1996, featuring Naseeruddin Shah as Karadi, the bear.

Later more artistes were associated - like Girish Karnad, Usha Uthup, Nandita Das, Nassar, Manna Dey, Udit Narayan, SP Balasubramaniam, and Shankar Mahadevan.

Teach Children to Draw Animals

Here is great site to help children learn to draw a variety of animals:

How to Draw It :

How to draw animals from pears
How to draw sheep
How to draw a parrot
How to draw an owl
How to draw a dachshund
How to draw a frog
How to draw a hen
How to draw a rooster
How to draw a pig
How to draw a goat
How to draw a cow
How to draw deer
How to draw ducks
How to draw birds
How to draw snails
How to draw a cocker spaniel
How to draw a poodle
How to draw a squirrel
How to draw a koala bear
How to draw a rabbit
How to draw kittens
How to draw bears
How to draw horses
How to draw a crocodile
How to draw a porcupine
How to draw an opossum
How to draw a seahorse
How to draw a swan
How to draw a whale
How to draw a camel
How to draw a kangaroo
How to draw a giraffe
How to make alphabets into animals
How to draw lions
How to draw tigers
How to draw a dinosaur
How to draw a walrus
How to draw penguins
How to draw a rhinocerus
How to draw a hippopotamus
How to draw a peacock
How to draw an angelfish
How to draw elephants
How to draw centaurs
How to draw a unicorn
How to draw a griffin
How to draw an octopus

WAH! Empowering Rural India. One Child at a Time.

Work An Hour 2008: Asha for Education has launched the 11th edition of its flagship online fundraiser Work An Hour. From July 15th to September 15th, you are invited to donate to 15 very special projects in need of funding to help educate underprivileged children in India.

The concept is simple "Participants are asked to symbolically Work an Hour towards the cause of children's education by donating an hour's worth or more of their salary."

Some highlights:

• Donors will have the ability to give to a project of their choice.
• First WAH campaign started in 1998, raised over $30,000 from close to 700 donors. Last year, WAH raised over $140,000 with a donor base of over 1,250 participants.
• Projects chosen in the past included a wide range of education initiatives, such as educating slum children, supporting schools for the disabled and non-formal education centers, educating children of sexworkers, mitigating child labor etc.
• This year's campaign addresses the empowerment of rural and tribal communities & centered around, Empowering Rural India. One Child at a Time.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE.

Teaching Methods

Teaching Methods: An interesting list of suggestions by Abraham Maslow on teaching children:

* Be authentic.
* Transcend their cultural conditioning and become world citizens.
* Find their vocation and right mate.
* Know that life is precious.
* Be good and joyous in all kinds of situations.
* Learn from their inner nature.
* See that basic needs are satisfied.
* Refresh their consciousness; appreciate beauty and other good things in life.
* Understand that controls are good, and complete abandon is bad.
* Transcend trifling problems
* Grapple with serious problems such as injustice, pain suffering and death
* Be good choosers
* Be given practice in making choices, later allowing choices in their religious beliefs.

Want to add to this list?

Should you volunteer, or support financially?

How do you deal with children begging on the streets?

Nandita Das shares:

Children begging in the streets, for instance – that’s one issue that I have not sorted out in my mind, yet. I don’t know whether I should give alms and encourage begging. I also know that is not going to change the situation. But then, am I doing anything else in lieu of not giving a tenner? When I see them at traffic lights, I feel that at least I should make eye contact, talk to them. Many of my friends keep telling me, ‘Don’t talk to them’, ‘Don’t even look at them. You are asking for trouble.’ But I try to connect with them. I make faces, talk to them... that is a moment of lightness in their lives, and, as I have realised, in mine too.

I don’t undermine monetary contribution, because there is such an unequal distribution of money in this world. It is important that people contribute financially too. But being involved, volunteering to give some time, apart from money, often enriches one’s own life.

If, as a human being, one wants to grow and be more sensitive, there’s nothing like giving time and creating those experiences for oneself.

What is your take?

How would you like to contribute towards education of underprivileged children?

Inclusive Education

Teach India: 'Don't weed out kids, work them in' : Amol Gupte, writer and creative-director of Taare Zameen Par, has very strong views on overhauling the Indian Education System. He says:

An Inclusive education, to me,
is one that does not practice selective exclusion—
weeding out children on the basis of unreasonable milestones.....,
and I am shocked by the way
the education system systematically and selectively
denies children with special needs access to the classroom.
What people forget is that
the speed of the herd is not determined
by the fastest but the slowest in the pack.

On, what would he like to change?

A total overhaul of the curriculum.
I would like to see a more holistic curriculum,
where the focus is on knowledge not scores.
Besides, I would like to replace rote learning
with subjective knowledge that would benefit a child much more.

Hmmn...that is lot work! Let us get going!

Teach India

Teach India: Teach India aims to support the education of underprivileged children....


DONATE SOMETHING MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAT FUNDS.......

YOUR TIME

HOW MUCH TIME do you HAVE for underprivileged children?