Non-Formal Education
CIS periodically holds a Study Circle, to discuss diverse topics of popular interest at Basudha to cultivate knowledge. The Study Circle involves young students, school teachers and social activists from the surrounding villages, with disciplines ranging from Social Darwinism to atronomy. Sometimes the discussion follows screening of a classic film of socio-political importance (e.g., Chaplin’s Modern Times, Truffault’s Fahrenheit 451, De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, and Benigni’s La Vita é Bella), and pertaining to the global land rights movements and farmers’ resistance to industrial agriculture and transgenics.
Participants are encouraged to form informed opinions on diverse scientific, cultural and political matters relevant to current social discourse and movements. At Basudha, we encourage children from surrounding villages to explore nature with the help of hand lenses, lens-fitted insect box, binoculars, and a bamboo microscope. CIS also organizes an annual Nature Camp, where young children as well as old housewives participate and learn about the local plants, birds, insects and reptiles in the wild, and stars and planets in the sky. Basudha has a stock of educational toys for teaching village children probability theory and solid geometry. Alongside, CIS organizes various non-formal educational programs to inculcate scientific thinking into children, including school drop-outs. CIS members are engaged in movements to oppose superstition and various forms of social injustice. Many forms of folk music and indigenous sports are now disappearing, thanks to the advent of corporate-sponsored cricket and commercial film music. CIS aims to protect the traditional sports like archery, stilt race and women’s pitcher race by holding annual tournaments. CIS also invites the indigenous school of baul singers to perform their arts at Basudha, thereby protecting the original form of baul songs from neglect and degeneration. Every winter, CIS celebrates a three-day Basudha Festival. The festival includes indigenous sports tournaments and a musical night, usually around the third week of October. If you happen to arrive at this time, you will surely relish the verve of Bengal’s folk culture.