Biodiversity conservation organisation, Aaranyak organised a two-day awareness and education programme for school children on homestead gardens at Karebari, Bhuyanpara Range, Manas National Park of Assam.
The programme was organised as part of the education and capacity building programme titled, “Connecting Children to their Homestead Gardens”, conceptualised by the Natural Resource Management Programme of Aaranyak for children of age groups 15 to 17 years.
The programme aims to sensitise the children about biodiversity with special reference to their homestead gardens by fostering their critical observation skills and by encouraging them to undertake discussions with their parents and grandparents on the rich diversity their homestead gardens offer.
Through the programme, a pre-knowledge assessment would be conducted on the knowledge of the students on biodiversity and observation, identification, documentation and analytical abilities of rare and locally threatened floral species, followed by their restoration in homestead gardens.
The programme was organised at the Karebari Jwngsar Bijab Khuli Afad (the village library) and was attended by 31 children and their mothers and members of the village youth group.
During the activity sessions, students were divided into two groups and were asked to list out the plants, animals and edibles they regularly observe in their home gardens and list their social and cultural importance. Students below the age of seven years were asked to draw using natural colours under the supervision of their mothers.
The students were divided into four groups and each group was instructed to undertake surveys in one homestead garden, each, in the village and record the flora and fauna in the garden. All the groups completed their tasks enthusiastically within the stipulated time.
Aaranyak’s trained volunteers and expert field team coordinated the programme organised on April 7 and 8 comprising Saikhong Basumatary, Bijay Basumatary, Barnali Chakraborty, Swapan Kumar Das and Stephen Basumatary, working in the fringe villages of Manas Tiger Reserve and National Park, under the guidance of Dr Jayanta Kumar Sarma.
The programme was organised with support from the IUCN-KfW project “Securing population of tigers, habitats and biological corridors in Assam, India”.
The sensitisation programme marked the commencement of a series of ten similar programmes across the 10 selected villages under the project around Manas Tiger Reserve.
