Fun with junk

From puppet shows, drum circles to book exchanges, there are no bounds to the hoards of fun  kids are in for this Sunday. Dedicated to children between the ages of four years and above,  the Junk Art Festival at NCPA is designed to teach and educate kids to reuse and recycle junk in a fun way.

Talking about the intentions behind this idea, Veena Manoj, co-founder and director Grooming Babies, says, “When we thought about the Junk Art Festival it was to raise environmental consciousness among children. We thought of creating this festival where we could get children together and inculcate consciousness in them. This festival is going to include a repurposed fashion workshop, craft engagement, kitchen waste gardening, clay modelling, a musical puppet drama, junk music circle, and a bookshop corner.”

In the various workshops lined up for the juniors, they will also learn to make a kitchen garden   by potting plants inside coconut shells. “We generally just drink the water and dump the coconut shell, but we want to teach children how by using coconut waste we can make beautiful pots for their kitchen garden. So we are going to assemble some discarded coconut shells, soil, seeds and teach them how they can craft a beautiful planter out of it,” says Veena. For the clay-modeling workshop, Veena plans to use the natural clay straight from the ground instead of synthetic materials. She says, “We are going to teach children how out of mud we can make wonderful things because nowadays children are more into clay modeling in terms of play-doh and stuff. They don’t know that even  mud, can be used to make a mask out of it.”

For the little ones in the crowd, there is a musical puppet show revolving around a fish living amid beautiful corals. The puppet show explains the atrocities of human kind and its effect on the environment. Narrating the story Veena says, “The musical puppet drama is a puppet show where a fish comes from a beautiful coral land of her own and realises that the volume of junk is increasing and her coral land is being destroyed. That’s when she gets help from a friend who comes as a blessing and saves the coral land.”  

To be a part of the festival, all a child needs to do is — carry junk   items like a plastic bags, old newspapers or an old t-shirt that can be used to create interesting craft items. Apart from that, there is also a junk music circle to keep them jumping on their feet. Veena shares, “The junk musical circle will be creating music from PVC pipes, for which drummer Amrut Bhat has created the rhythm and beats out of PVC pipes. This again will educate children that music can be created out of anything. It’s not necessary that you need musical instruments to create music,” shares Veena.

Indeed, such activities not only make a child environment conscious, but also encourage others to do the same. “Today’s children are more conscious. They don’t litter on the ground, they look around for a dustbin and will  ask others not to litter. So that’s a very positive growth we see in children,” she concludes.