Learning Curve

At the Centre for Education and Voluntary Action (CEVA),a small organisation which runs a resource centre in the city and plans to explore alternative approaches to education,there is a great deal of emphasis on gauging things for yourself. The organisation networks with people across India to understand how people approach a problem and come up with solutions for education-related dysfunctions,including the stress of exams,peer pressure and job anxiety. “We hope to create capabilities and not jobs and are looking to create a team of facilitators who would be able to design and facilitate different kinds of interactive learning situations,” smiles Harleen Kohli,Founder,CEVA,who’s been in the field for almost two decades now.

The main focus of their work is to carry out dialogues within different communities for mutual education,communication and empowerment by using formal and non-formal media. As a part of the process they’ve been building a resource library and an activity bank,and creating teaching-learning materials through puppetry,theatre,story-telling and clown acts,even waste management. “We network with environmental groups,learning activists and zero-waste management groups to get different perspectives to the same thing,” says Kohli,adding how they work in a non-hierarchical and unconventional format to create learning situations. They extend support to schools and teachers on a non-commercial basis too.

Their new project entails organising intensive training in mentoring and facilitation,running short modules in schools like curriculum design,mentoring teachers,forming clubs,having science and maths fairs etc. “Education is now about multi-tasking and looking at life from a unique perspective. We want to start a dialogue by asking what do you want to learn since learning and fun are not independent,” she says.