Week 1 of art class: Every kutty story can change the world

Note to new readers of our blog: Kutty Kutty stories is a zine making workshop for 30 adolescent boys of a shelter home in Coimbatore.

Around 3 years back, I took a picture book called Mr. Big to read the children we work with. I was teaching four 7th standard children at that time and it was a beautiful experience reading along with them. One boy who could read well got the book and read line by line while the other three boys tried to understand the meaning. They picked up one new word from the book - "mystery" and decoded its meaning on their own. Being a teacher at heart, this definitely is a core memory for me.

Fast word to January this year, Ashik proposed we do an art workshop where children will create their own storybooks. I said YES with all my heart and got thinking with her on how we can make this happen. I researched on storytelling, story writing practices on the internet. I reached out to authors of children's books to understand the process.

I experimented with creating storybook of my own. I kept wondering how would children create characters, how would they choose a setting or context for their stories and how they would script it. Fortunately this is when Sowmya, a professional storyteller joined our team and here is a wonderful insight I learned from her.

Quoting her, "Every human has stories in them. Not just when they are sitting and researching how to write. Not just when they read stories. Not just when they listen to stories. Every human is a storyteller because we are human beings. And, by just being, we keep experiencing so much that we all have stories in us. "

This nudged my thinking further. And, on the first day of art class, Ashik invited an author from Coimbatore - Akila Kannadasan. She narrated the story of a book she wrote "The Lost Elephant and Soul Tree", and she also explained her process to the children. The children were stunned as to how she travelled, met actual elephants in a basecamp before she penned this book. I was stunned by the questions the children asked to her.

At the end of the first art class, children learnt stamping technique and made illustrations of characters and elements they liked from the story. Here's a brief preview of what they made.

My awe didn't stop here. Just one week after the first class, two children had already written a short story inspired by "The Lost Elephant and Soul Tree". They had also gotten feedback from their fellow peers and further fine tuned the story - all of this in just one week.

This is when it hit me why Akila's story had made such a big impact on the children. It wasn't a story they just listened to, it is a story they have been experiencing in their life. The elephants in the story live in a herd just like the boys at the who reside together across age groups in a hostel environment. They loved the story because the elephants had values that they deeply admire like love, teamwork, curiosity, adventure and fairness.

The story they had penned also has all these values and I literally can't wait for them to add imagery to the beautiful story they have penned together. This is only one kutty story written by a couple of boys inspired by one week of art class.

Now I say to anyone with confidence that the kutty kutty stories the children of our art class are illustrating will definitely touch your hearts and if the world is ready for it, it will definitely change it too! Because these are not just imagined stories, these are stories that the boys are penning based on their rich lived experiences.

Keen to hear more about kutty kutty stories and hear the voice of children for yourself? Stay tuned as we keep posting updates on what happened on each week of Kutty Kutty Stories

This blog is written by Chandhni S, one of the team members of Kutty Kutty Stories.

Contact:

Chandhni S, (LinkedIn)

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