BHUBANESWAR: The State-level tribal children’s festival, Sargi Fula 2011, organised by the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) Development Department, kicked off on Monday at the Adivasi Ground here.
Commissioner-cum-Secretary of the department Santosh Sarangi and Shairose Mawji, UNICEF-Odisha chief, inaugurated the three-day festival. The Saragi Fula, children’s magazine, published by the Academy of Tribal Language and Culture, was also released.
Around 720 students, accompanied by 150 teachers from institutions run by the departments like ashram schools, sevashrams, residential sevashrams, SC/ST Development high schools and Ekalavya modern residential schools of all districts are taking part in the event. Its objective is to tap the latent talents of the tribal children and hone their skills through various activities.
Workshops on magic, music, dance, creative writing, painting, mathematics, science experiment and games, terracotta, paper craft, film-making and photography, theatre, clay modelling, animation, best of waste, creative games and child reporting were being conducted by resource persons. This apart, students have displayed interesting science models at the exhibitions.
The participants, selected from district- level competitions which tested their abilities in a host of activities, were from classes V to X.
On the occasion, Sarangi said to facilitate the extra-curricular activities among tribal students in high schools, the department provides ` 1 lakh per annum to each school.
Of this, ` 90,000 is being used to identify resource persons and train students in at least two extra-curricular activities, one in the area of sports and the other a non-sports based activities. The balance is used for setting up a career counselling desk in every school and printing of a booklet on career opportunities for the students in various sectors.
“The extra-curricular activities will enhance the overall personality of the students. This will also help in retention of students who might be academically weak but may be having talent in other areas,” Sarangi said.
The last day of the event will see cultural performances and magic shows by the participating students. The department has also added a ‘Meet the Artist’ component to the festival where the children would get to interact with famous personalities from all sectors.