Vineeth Kumar M

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA will engage eighth and ninth grade students of Government High School in Hiregowja, Chikkamagaluru district with the project titled Tejaswi Shaale (Tejaswi School). An experiential learning platform will be created in the school premise focusing on the life and work of the prominent writer and novelist KP Poornachandra Tejaswi. Students will explore his book Parisarada Kathe focusing on three elements – observe, comprehend and believe, connecting it to their curriculum in languages and environmental science. Vineeth Kumar M will be the Coordinator for this project. 

Vineeth Kumar M is a theatre practitioner from Chikkamagaluru district. He has pursued a Diploma in Theatre Arts from Ninasam. He has been working with various theatre groups across Chikkamagaluru. He has also started his own theatre group with the vision to create a space for dialogue around theatre education, and has organised summer camp and other theatre courses for children. Given his experience he is best placed to be the Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA.     

KP Poornachandra Tejaswi has written across various forms of literature including poems, short stories, novels, travel literature, plays and science fiction. Nature and incidents related to nature enjoy major roles in most of his works. Also, he has translated a number of English books to Kannada enriching the depth of Kannada literature. His famous translations include the series on Kenneth Anderson's hunting expeditions and Henri Charrière's Papillon. Tejaswi has remained a central literary figure for many scholars and practitioners across various cities and towns in the Western Ghats of Karnataka. 

This project is focused around the life and work of Tejaswi. Eighth and ninth grade students of Government High School in Hiregowja village in Chikkamagaluru district will explore his novels and plays, connecting it to their curriculum in languages and environmental science. The project Tejaswi Shaale (Tejaswi School) is aimed at providing an experiential learning platform by engaging them with a pool of resource persons and artistic interventions. All the art integrated activities in the project are based on three elements namely – observe, comprehend and believe. In the first half of the project, students will collect local stories and songs on Hiregowja village by interviewing the villagers. They will explore the forests and hill stations near their school and connect it to the characters in Tejaswi’s novels. This activity will create curiosity among students and also inculcate a habit of reading in them. 

The project will invite wildlife photographers, journalists, and other local resource persons to engage students with stories of the forest. In the second phase of the project, local community members in the around Hiregowja village will be invited to the school and students will have a series of interactions and field visits with them. The Project Coordinator will also conduct a few theatre activities around observing, comprehending and believing, and encourage them to develop a script from all their learnings. The project will craft space for students to express their findings in the school premises. 

The outcome of the project will be a performance and an exhibition in the presence of school staff and villagers. The deliverables to IFA with the final report will include still and video documentation of the process, performance, and exhibition.

This project suitably addresses the framework of IFA’s Arts Education programme in the manner in which it attempts to help students connect their school curriculum to the stories from the regions they inhabit and communities they live with.

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm and document it through an Implementation Memorandum. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees.