The SAARC Haveeru – Chennai Coastal Carnival for Children (C4) was a three day event organized between 4th and 6th August, 2011 at Chennai by the Centre for Environment Education (CEE) with support from the SAARC Coastal Zone Management Centre (SCZMC), Maldives. The objective was to spread awareness about the coasts and conservation education amongst the children and local public.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Local Partnerships
The Tamil Nadu Bharat Scout and Guide (BSG) partnered with CEE to support in co-hosting the event and engaging the school students from across the schools in Chennai for participation in the event. CEE also partnered with other research and academic institutions like the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI); Central Institute of Brackish water Authority (CIBA); The Institute of Ocean Management (IOM), Anna University, Department of Marine Science and Coastal Resource Management, Madras Christian College (MCC) in order to engage the scientists, academicians and college youth in the event and facilitate learning activities with the school students. Partnerships were also established with NGOs and Volunteer Organizations working in coastal conservation – like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) – Marine Division, Kerala; Reclaim our Beaches (ROB) – a youth volunteer association working on cleaning beaches; Transparent Chennai – an organization working on mapping the coast and development activities; The World Storytelling Institute – working on fisher folklore and traditional knowledge. Such partnerships helped in making the activities innovative, interconnected and educational.
Pre Event Rally
Pre-event rally began on 4th August, 2011 at 8.00 am to spread the message about the event. Around 100 students assembled along the marina beach. The Scouts and Guides, students from environmental club, National Green Corps (NGC), youths from Madras Christian College, Vivekananda College, fisher youths from Nagapattinam, Pondicherry coast, local fishers, institutions and officials were part of the rally. The rally was flagged off by Dr.Shailendra Kumar Mamgain, Deputy Director, SCZMC, Maldives. During the rally, students staged street plays at selected points. Messages about contemporary coastal issues like beach erosion; pollution; waste management; ecosystem damage; deforestation; overfishing; risk to traditional livelihood etc. were conveyed. Subsequently the students performed the street plays in their schools too.
The Event
2-day event started on 5th of August with the inaugural session.
Inauguration
The event was inaugurated by Dr. P.Iyam Perumal, Director, Tamil Nadu State Council for Science and Technology. Other dignitaries included Dr. V.S. Chandrasekaran, Principal Scientist Central Institute of Brackishwater Authority (CIBA); Dr. M. Jayanthi, Senior Scientist; Dr. Shailendra Kumar Mamgain, the Deputy Director, Coastal Zone Management and officials from the Centre for Environment Education (CEE). The inaugural saw dignitaries communicating to the students about the importance of coastal conservation and motivating them to learn from the two day experience. They also spoke about institutional collaborations to further the cause of conservation of Marine environment and sustainable development of coasts of India.
Activities
The fun filled learning activities were conducted on 5th and 6th August, 2011 at the Bharat Scouts and Guide Campus at Wenlock Park campus, Triplicane near to the beach area in Chennai. The campus pitched with large shamianas (tents) , stage and hall and gave a festive ambience. All the partner organizations participated actively in the planning and conducting the activities through exhibitions, games, quiz and related activites. The activities were designed to highlight the ecological, economical and socio-cultural significance of the coast. The activities included interactive discussions, debates, exhibits, films, presentations, demonstrations, hands on learning, games, competitions, simulation, individual and group exercises, cultural folklore, interaction with traditional fishers, disaster management life saving skills and so on. These activities were grouped according to the approaches. Separate fun-filled learning spaces were created for each of these approaches. These spaces were named like the Exhibition corner; Cultural comer; Discussion corner; Challenge Corner; Cuisine Corner; Games Corner, Disaster Management Space etc. to help students identify the approaches that each comer offered. These spaces helped students to focus on particular approaches, interact with the subject specialists and educators and gain a hands-on learning experience.
Around 30 student volunteers from various colleges were engaged for facilitating the logistics and conduct of the activities.
The Exhibition corner exposed students to marine biodiversity including various marine fish species; interesting features of the coast; importance of conservation. Students also learnt about mariculture; fisheries management; climate change impacts; traditional fishers livelihood aspects. The scientists from the academic and research institutions also explained about marine research and, coast and marine developmental projects. A life size Whale Shark was also put on exhibition and students learnt about its features, behavior and importance. The exhibits made learning more interesting and students were deeply involved in the learning process. Students from the academic institutes also displayed various academic courses on marine and coastal systems.
Discussion corner helped students to interact with the scientists, learn through Quizzola. Films were screened to highlight the coral ecosystem, underwater ecosystems, marine biodiversity. Scientists from the research institutes also interacted with students to clear doubts and relate the learning to their school curriculum.
The Games Corner showcased several educative games like the web of life, snake and ladder, mapping of the coast, garbage museum etc. Besides the fun element, these games also helped students learn about various coastal issues and relate their day to day actions that impact the limited coastal resources and space. The mapping activities helped students learn skills on Geo-referencing and map making.
Demonstrations on coastal disaster management, included skill training from the Fire Services Department. This exposed the students to the coastal hazards and skills to reduce the disaster impacts. Apart from this the traditional fisher youths demonstrated several low cost life saving skills. Impacted by the demonstration, the Scouts and Guides framed the idea of starting the Sea Scout movement.
In the Cultural Corner the traditional fishers (men, women and children) set up a live cattumaram (catamarans) boat and nets (livelihood tools) and display of different fish catch including trash fish. They recreated a mini-fish market and fishermen going into the sea. Children learnt directly from them about their experiences of the sea, the livelihood tools and their lifestyle. Fisher students also performed skits on the life of fishers and sung traditional songs. Some of the school students also brought in their instruments like drum, guitar, key board and coir group to sing and play songs on coastal environment. These lively and educative activities reinforce the learning of students from the exhibit comer.
In the Cuisine Corner, the students from Marine Science College demonstrated various fish preparations. They also communicated aspects about the fish life cycle, ecosystem, nutritional value of sea food and other aspects about fisheries management along with the healthy cooking tips.
In the Challenge Corner drawing, elocution, extempore speech, poster presentation and model making were conducted as competition activities on the themes of coastal biodiversity; developmental issues; coastal conservation. Several students participated in the competition and expressed their perspectives through colours. The entries were evaluated and prizes announced. Students also painted marine life on their body and also learnt about the particular creature through body painting activity.
Overall around 300 students participated in the activities over the two day event. Subsequent to the event, the education department and scouts and guides plan to take up the coastal conservation messages across the schools in Chennai. The college students have also volunteered to join regular beach cleanup activities near Beasant nagar on Marina beach in Chennai. They are also engaged in mapping civic services and public infrastructure of coastal wards. The fishers lifestyle and livelihood issues are also being documented by NGOs working in Chennai and their issues communicated in the form of story-telling by engaging the traditional fishers.
Click here to download SAARC Haveeru Report (31.9 MB)
