Sri Aurobindo Society, Rudrapur, organized a month-long theatre education workshop for children from June 30 to July 4, 2017. The workshop, which culminated in a play ‘The Biggest Gift’ (‘Sabse bada Upahar’) performed by 35 children and watched by around 600 people, was held at the auditorium of Jaycees Public School in Rudrapur.

The chief guests at the event were Education Minister of Uttarakhand, Shri Arvind Pandey, and local MLA, Shri Rajkumar Thukral, on the second and first days, respectively.

The primary aim of the workshop was to bring about Integral Transformation in children who mostly belonged to the region’s underprivileged Dalit labour families.  

The facilitator of the theatre education workshop, Dr Abhijit Mondal, conducted the sessions in such a manner that made it a liberating experience for the children as opposed to being forcefully spoon-fed with concepts. A majority of the sessions were devoted to the important role art and culture play in our lives. The children had hands-on experience on various art-forms such as music, dance, sets, lights, acting, script-writing, costumes and make-up in a friendly learning environment. 

The workshop spanning 30 days focused on inner growth and enabled the children to decide on the life-path they would like to take besides giving direction to their aspirations and future goals. Such workshops can also help prevent some of the children from taking recourse to criminal activities which they may get drawn to.

The entire community appreciated all the efforts put in to organize this seminal workshop.

Feedback from Participants

“This workshop taught me self-awareness and teamwork. I am really grateful for the amount of time and attention Sir Abhijit gave me to help me progress. No one has ever done this for me before.”

– Sanju

“I learnt a lot about hard work and teamwork from this workshop. I also realized that to achieve anything in life, one must work very work. It also helped me in developing my concentration and imaginative faculties.”

– Puja