KARACHI: One of Pakistan’s leading school enrichment program Badal Do, held its 2nd Annual Education Festival at Beach Luxury Hotel Karachi, highlighting teacher sensitization to bring about inclusive and innovative tools in education by adopting creative methods to make peace, social inclusion, diversity and tolerance part of the educational experience, in the classrooms and beyond.
The initiative consists of 150 participating schools – 120 private/30 government – consisting more than 10,000 students, Badal Do Education Festival aims to create a range of learning and development opportunities for schools to keep the process of progression and enrichment alive.
The festival opened with MC Zawwar & Rashid introducing the Badal Do Education Festival and highlighting activities taking place at the event; followed by an introduction to Afia Salam where she spoke about Badal Do and its model which is based on positive engagement with the school community in in integrating universal humanistic values of harmony, respect for diversity and inclusion in academic, co-curricular and administrative aspects followed by a glance into Badal Do is through an interactive video. Key Note speaker Javed Jabbar talked about how Pakistan has been recognised as one the countries with the most educational reforms in the world according to The Economist.
Following Javed Jabbar key note speech, students, teachers and guest alike visited the educational exhibition which consisted of Children’s Museum for Peace and Human Rights (CMPHR) exhibit where 10,000 plus student art entries where collected and 1000 plus artwork were their expression of hope are demonstrated in the artwork on cloth and stitched on 75 quilts by Children’s Museum for Peace and Human Rights depicting children’s understanding of Acceptance, Tolerance, Environment, Diversity, Say no to guns, Peace and Social justice. In addition to this, five of these quilts were selected by Rabiya Javeri Agha, Secretary Ministry of Human Rights, Government of Pakistan to be displayed at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City in early September. The Second exhibit consisted of images and video taken by participating schools and displayed for viewing as well as Critical Thinking Games display.
The Education Festival also consisted of panels by Children’s Museum for Peace and Human Rights (CMPHR), AzCorp & The School of Writing (TSW) highlighting centric activities which are designed to promote creative, reflective and progressive skills in both students and teachers with support from school management. Through a variety of approaches and materials, Badal Do programme engages with students, teachers and school management to collectively work for promoting a more robust, vibrant and socially responsible learning environment.
The objective of Badal Do is to prepare a cadre of teachers ready to bring about behaviour change to foster peace and tolerance in society. By interacting with people who are different, the barriers of ‘otherization’ will be broken down. By listening to luminaries of their own fields, asking questions, listening to Badal Do stories of transformation, thus attempting to ignite the change within, and cascade it into the society. News Desk
