Education through interaction: Children’s festival opens with 10,000 in attendance

The opening day saw reading and story-telling sessions for children aged 4-17.

LAHORE:

Children’s Literature Festival opened its seventh annual event on Wednesday with its official anthem, Humain Kitab Chahiye.

Students from Government Special Education Centre and Sanjan Nagar School participated were present for the inaugural ceremony.

The two-day festival is organised by the Idara-e-Taleem-O-Aagahi, the Oxford University Press and the Open Society Foundation.

Organisers said in attendance on the opening day of the festival were 10,000 children.

The venue, the Children’s Library Complex, was decorated with colourful flags and banners carrying slogans promoting books for children. “Reading everyday keeps ignorance away,” read one of the banners.

The festival officially started at 11am after dozens of children released green and white balloons in the air.



The festival ran parallel sessions for children between the ages of four and 17. The sessions were organised at 18 different locations. There were four simultaneous reading and story-telling sessions.

The Main Hall by Indian author Ankit Chadha got the largest audience during its reading session.

A relatively small but equally enthusiastic young audience sat through the reading of Musharraf Ali Farooqi’s Tik-Tik, The Master of Time.

The Punjab Education Foundation, Faiz Foundation Trust, Paramount Books, Liberty Books, Idara-i-Taleem-o-Aagahi and the Oxford University Press have set up stalls at the entrance of the venue.

The Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) set up a stall and the LWMC staff made rounds to ensure the venue remained clean.

The Little Art screened films for children throughout the day. Children also flocked to the Hobby Section area where the Alif Laila Book Bus Society’s team held various activities, including reading, painting and drawing.

The Sindh Education Foundation’s (SEF) stall, called Bagh-o-Bahar, was visited by 1000 children in the first hour.

Talking to The Express Tribune, SEF’s Marketing, Advocacy and Publications Deputy Director Nisar Banbhan said the foundation aimed to educate children on various topics through activities and engagement. He said the SEF had brought a 17-member team from Karachi for the festival.

The SEF’s activities included card and puppet-making and Art With Junk. The SEF also held awareness sessions on health and child abuse.

Using random objects, including used ice cream sticks, recyclable paper and cardboard, the SEF team helped children make puppets.

Earlier, Minister for Education Rana Mashood Ahmad Khan said it was encouraging that several types of activities were planned to promote literature and arts.

He said the government was working on organising events targeting the young.

He said the government planned to hold another youth festival on December 3 this year.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 31^st, 2013.