“With the summer vacations coming up, we have organised the Wonders of the Wild programme, which are a series of shorter courses for kids between the ages of eight and 11 years, and 12 and 17 years. For the younger ones, we have hands-on workshops entirely themed around environment and wildlife,” says Asha Cherian, executive director of Dakshin Endeavours. “Kids of this age are not really old enough to sit and have conversations about these things but it’s great to have them start thinking about it and arts and crafts are a great way to initiate these conversations. For the older kids, there are programmes involving slightly more serious conversations. It’s for those who’ve arrived at some sort of an interest in specific things,” she adds.

Although the organisation focuses on interactive sessions, they’ve had to adapt to the challenges thrown at them during the pandemic. “It is very difficult to replicate sensory experiences that we provided the kids in the pre-pandemic days online, which is why we have programmes on topics which we think have the least probability of being tainted by the digital medium. It is to keep them as engaged as possible while being stuck indoors,” she reveals. The itinerary is taught by researchers and facilitators with backgrounds in ecology, wildlife and marine species. “We’ve planned lectures on basic herpetology, with more focus on reptiles, classification of species and a little bit of history on them as well,” says Chetan Rao, wildlife biologist and facilitator of one of those workshops. 

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