Tamasha

Tamasha is a big happy elephant who sets the tone and culture for all that we do in Katha. She started off before Katha got its formal existence. The magazine to which she lent her name supported Katha in its initial years. Today, Tamasha lends her name to a library on wheels, the schools on wheels. And the magazine with her name on it, continues, albeit with only the old copies to regale young minds with fresh ideas and fun learning tools. Tamasha! over the last 17 years provides .

• Quality reading materials to children from nonliterate families.
• It is a child to community magazine. Tamasha is an acronym that stands for T he A ctivity Ma gazine for S preading H ealth A wareness..
• It will be accompanied by, each quarter, a small teacher's manual on how to use it for in-class, in-curricular exercises with children.

BE A LIFE PILOT WITH Tamasha!

Basic HEALTH skills and values for life and living

THE PROPOSAL UNDER CONSIDERATION

  Tamasha! -

• Brings BIG ideas on health, hygiene and environment, (and the nexus between these and poverty) to children in about 5,000 schools in India , mostly in the rural and urban under-served areas, in Hindi and in English.
• C ontains topics that are highly relevant for children, 7 - 14, especially since even today far too many girls and boys are still getting married at these ages, especially in poorer families.
• Actively helps young readers seek and obtain the involvement of parents and community groups.
• Helps children understand that health is a dynamic process that includes emotional, mental, physical, social, environmental, and spiritual dimensions.
• Helps children, through strong characters, powerful illustrations and well-told stories (both fiction and nonfiction) to understand the role of good health and hygiene practices in their lives and families and communities.
• Shares this knowledge, through the child in school, with other children in the community who might not, for various reasons, be in school. With mothers especially, who are proud of school-going children and willing to listen to what they have to say.
• Takes information to the village at large through the involvement of family adults in the active and proactive dissemination of knowledge about these larger issues.

• Helps students and their families to live in good health. Having worked with and through Tamasha! for more than fifteen (15) years, we know how quickly this has meant family wellbeing. This family wellbeing converts, soon, into tangible results - adults are able to put in more hours at work (there's less absenteeism from work) and hence the economic standards of the family improves. This has direct bearing on children entering the labour force. In Katha's field programme (started in 1990) we have seen how just working with children and women has led to strong and consistent bettering of family resources and wellbeing.
• Also, young boys and girls have a natural urge for knowledge. We regularly see students not only coming regularly to the learning centres so that they learn well and avoid the trap of child labour (mostly caused by family poverty and the child's own sense of diffidence in school).

Tamasha! with its package of ideas and information, make learning fun and relevant. It makes the learning of English as a second language possible and fun; it makes the lifelong learning of good and sustainable health and hygiene habits part of in-school and out of school learning.

And finally, Tamasha! is constantly being used extensively by Katha in its teacher-training workshops, so that the message of health, community revitalizations and economic resurgence through self-help are carried through a powerful, continuous medium, to schools in under-privileged areas of the country - both urban and rural. This will continue as we in Katha see this as absolutely essential if health is to transform the meaning of wealth and wealth-making in India !

Reproductive health, safe motherhood human sexuality are important extensions of the proposed series of Tamasha! books on health and hygiene.

If you would like to fund Tamasha! and help it reach out to millions of children across the information starved Hindi belt of India, write to us: shakti@katha.org