Impacts of ‘Sahitya Sabha’ in Swanirvar Primary Schools:

BACKGROUND

           In 2000, 13 teachers and supervisor of Swanirvar's three primary schools visited Santiniketan on an exposure trip organized by Bratin Chatterjee of Patha Bhavan there. During this trip the teachers witnessed a Sahitya Sabha - a cultural evening organized and conducted by the students where they do all kinds of performances mostly based on their own compositions. Swanirvar teachers were very impressed and after coming back they started a similar thing. In year 2000-2001 it was held in two villages. The success and enthusiasm was beyond expectations. In fact many villagers were flabbergasted seeing Class IV girls and boys conducting the total proceedings. In 2001-2002 this was held in all the 3 villages where Swanirvar has its primary schools. Meanwhile Swanirvar has been trying to build all kinds of "connections" with the govt. school system locally. This year (2010-11) Swanirvar had organized 12 Sahitya Sabhas in its own Primary schools and also had organized 10 such events in Govt Primary schools.

Impacts:
From, 2001, Swanirvar’s teachers had taken a number of trainings on composing ‘poetry, poems and short stories, makings stories from pictures and movies, etc. They got trainings from Shikshamitra and other famous organizations. After the trainings, the teachers had guided their students to write their feelings. Getting enthusiasm, the students composed their own stories, poems etc and presented these in the Sahitya Sabhas. Gradually, some of our students made remarkable progress in their writings!! Most of them had shown their creativities in high schools, too.
          Musumi Parveen, studied in our primary school at Chandalati(1999-2005). She wrote many poems and short stories and was a regular performer of sahitya sabha. Presently, she is in class X and is very famous in her school for her excellent writing and debating abilities. Most of the time, she represent her school in the inter school debate and short speech competition. She is also a regular article writer of local magazines.

         Avishekh Mondal, Diya Mondal, Mamul Hassan, Milan Halder, Sardhendu Chatterjee, Mijanur Hossain, Piyali Biswas etc ( our ex students of Fatullapur Primary and Magurkhali Primary) are doing well in their schools.

         They are not scoring highest marks in their classes. But, they are topper in debate, painting, drama and writing articles and composing poetry sessions.

Reported by:

Prosanto Mondal

Supervisor, Primary