Creativity Adda Mukerjee Nagar, Delhi April 2018 Newsletter

Highlights of the Month

Community Media Lab

Creativity in Motion!! The newcomers in the Community Media Hub got inspired by the video projects made by our more experienced media champs and decided to do a short stop-motion video on their own. During the whole process they got lots of encouragement and support from the more experienced learners in the media hub. Watch the video here.

Passion for Photography!!! Our new batch of photographers is very enthusiastic and excited to try out everything that works and doesn’t work with the camera. At Adda, (almost) everything and anything goes, and we love to try out the unconventional — sometimes you succeed, and sometimes you fail, but both ways it is a great learning process. Only consequential, then, one of the first projects our new brigade engaged in was ‘splash water photography’ as a new unique way to test and experiment with their photography skills. Our veteran photographers provided them some advice and some were skeptical how the new batch would set it off, but they took on the challenge and did an awesome job. They really enjoy experimenting with color and texture and plan a lot more experiments. Just recently for example, they learned about and experimented with bulb photography.

Design Studio and Maker Space

Exploring never stops!!! Our designers keep on discovering and creating new products and uses for the items they make. This helps them also in other areas as they learn by doing about how to think creatively and come up with new perspective and angles. Some recent projects included varnishing and making wooden clips. Key holder cum clips were made by waste wood. Chaman is one of our designer champs who discovered his craftsmanship with all kinds of wooden materials at the Adda and comes up with ever new ideas and experiments.

Wood Calligraphy !! Be the Change You Want to See!! Our design studio maker space students participated in Kabaad se Jugaad Upcylers meet (in March) and got many new ideas for eco-friendly upcycled projects. Students have started bringing these into the Adda.

Remote based light!! Our maker space champ learnt and made a remote operated light. It is good to see the team experimenting with new ideas. Here is a video.

Slow Food Junior Chef Academy

Food and Fun!! Did you know that Samosas came to us from the Middle East? Next time you will eat a samosa, its shape might just remind you of the shape of the pyramids in Egypt after which they are modeled! This month our junior chefs went on a food walk tour in order to both learn more about the history of food which also makes an important part of our Indian culture and heritage, as well as to explore the taste and different preparation methods of our local cuisine.

No Teachers, No Students!! While our free learners always purse their own ideas and projects, this week was even more special as they came up with the idea to search for new recipes all by themselves and cook them together over the week. Chirag came with a recipe for making bread rolls and Ankit shared a recipe for a special kind of wheat pancake with his friends.

Street Food Week!!! Another special week for our junior chefs — this time, they explored some of the yummy street food we smell and see all around us all the time. For example, the chefs learned and prepared Delhi’s special moong dal ladoos, special Chaat from Rajkot and Raagi Pakodas. It was nice to see Smt Sunita Khanna, mother of Chirag and vice president of SMC, to join in the process. We aim to work together with parents as close as possible and they are always welcome to join us for projects or just for a visit and a cup of chai to see what our learners are up to and feel the vibrance and joy in the air first-hand. At another occasion, we also hosted the SMC members of GGSS School, Nehru Vihar to learn about Adda and see what our free learners are up to. As with parents, we also and always welcome community members to visit us and share in our (un-)learning experience.

Juice week!!! Yet another theme in this month was to learn all about fruit juices. For example, our junior chefs made Mausmi juice with a little jugaad. We didn’t have a juicer so the children experimented with a mixer and it worked, creating a thicker Mausmi juice to which we added healthy fruits such as pineapple and pomegranate. The new glasses added to the joy and presentation.

Sports and Fitness Hub

Skating Tournament! Our skaters were really excited to participate in a skate championship at Gyan public School Narayna. Besides all the fun and excitement, Aman even won a silver medal and Faiz got the bronze medal in quard category.

Creative Careers!! This month we continued our new initiative of Creative Careers workshop. This time we had a very athletically session which was all about basketball. We had Th Kolunii Shuru from DSSW as a guest speaker who shared his insights on basketball with us, given that the NBA has recently started its very first Academy in India. He also told the free learners about the rules of the game and how to play it. This was followed by some warmup exercises and, of course, playing the game.

Dance, Music and Art Hub

Express Yourself!! Contact Improv India came to the Creativity Adda in order to share with us a dance form called contact improvisation. The aim of this dance form is to help the teenage boys explore their creative side through movement in a non-judgmental, free and fun space. The boys were ecstatic by the end and enthusiastic to learn & understand more about this new dance form.Thanks to Guru, Hari and Harsh for making this possible!

The Change Makers on tour! The new group of our Dance Hub, the Change Makers, continued their tour around Delhi and joined in a celebration programme on the occasion of Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar’s birthday. Their performance was appreciated by everyone and they even received a trophy and cash prize too. At another occasion, the Change Makers also perfomed at Satyawati College. Stay tuned for more performances of the Change Makers which are already in the pipeline!

Our music band “Aura” performed at Amar Jyoti Charitable trust.
It was a great experience performing for and interacting with people who are differently-abled and this will help make the Creativity Adda children more sensitive towards the needs for inclusion. Thanks to Sushmita for creating a space for our band.

Visitors

Learning from Life!! Rather than forcing children to learn some abstract, often irrelevant knowledge from textbooks or to memorize what the teacher tells them (and what the teacher has him- or herself memorized from textbooks), we at the Adda want to share real practical experiences with the children and keep on inviting and hosting people with amazing stories, journeys and experiences they made on their own and want to pass on to our free learners.This time, we had Gijs and Omid (from Auroville) at Adda, who were traveling along the Silk Route (the most famous ancient trading route connecting Central and East Asia)in order to discover and learn about its green, natural side.They shared the drink of Radha flower with our junior chefs and our Media team made a video on it. The two also shared their knowledge of various seeds which they have collected along the road and they provided some tips for the maintenance of our new urban vertical garden.