Culturing creativity

The Katha Regional Writers Workshop 2016 was held recently at The Indian School to help students use their creativity and imagination to come up with some great stories. The workshop is organised every year by Katha, a non-profit organisation that works in the field of community development, child welfare, education and literature.

More than 400 students from national and international schools participated in the two-day workshop mentored by eminent personalities from fields of media, literature and publishing.  

“Becoming an author is not seen as an easy career, but Katha workshops are very inspirational. The mentors help us think out of the box and tell us how to be more expressive,” said Heera Sen, a student who aspires to be an author. Ujjwal Gupta, a nine-year-old aspiring poet who attended the workshop for the first time said that he hopes to gain useful insights from the mentors to publish his own collection of poems. 

Katha’s ‘Search for Excellence in Creative Writing’ is a programme designed to promote creative writing, illustrations, and translations in children in the age group 8–17 who currently attend schools across India and Indian schools abroad. 

The programme seeks to nurture the creative instincts in India’s children,  give  them  a  platform  to share  their  writing,  and  celebrate  their  work,  thereby  inspiring generations of future writers. 

The mentors who helped the students include Arunima Mazumdar, Kala Ramesh, Kamal Pruthi, Rashmi Chaudhary, Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty, Shrutika Mathur, Vikramjit Singh Rooprai and Vikram Abhishek Mall. The workshops for eastern region would be held on October 22-23 in Jorhat, Assam, for southern region in Hyderabad on November 4-5, and for the western region in Vododara on November 13-14.