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| Title |
Children’s Creativity and Co-creation Workshop |
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| Abstract |
The children’s creativity workshop during the Festival of Innovation (FOIN) March 7-13, 2015 at the Rashtrapati Bhawan, New Delhi sought solutions to societal problems in informal settlements around Delhi through the creative ideas of 35 underpriviledged children from there and 35 relatively well off children from around the country. The children were given an exposure to different solutions to real life problems tried by innovators at the exhibition, and they were encouraged to imbibe the same empathetic values in developing innovative ideas to solve basic problems faced by people living in under privileged areas like slums. |
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Children’s creativity workshop helps us to understand how young children can be a significant part of the national innovation value chain. The Inverted Model of Innovation implies that children ideate/innovate; fabricators design and companies/agencies diffuse commercially or socially. Involvement of children in solving their challenges will help us understand micro and macro strategies, which can mobilise the creative potential of children around the world. This may help in overcoming persistent social inertia in developing countries. The workshop aimed at tapping the dormant creative potential of underprivileged children who probably did not get any platform to articulate their ideas. Likewise, those children and youth who have innovated in some areas may come out with creative ideas in other domains as well. The workshop was held over two days. The first day involved brainstorming, visiting the displays in the Festival of Innovation exhibition and meeting grassroots innovators, a briefing on field work and then visits to the slums. On the second day, the children worked in groups in the exhibition tent, sketching the problems and presenting their ideas to solve them.Pedagogy1. Purpose: Discussion about the purpose of the workshop.2. Process: Brainstorming about some of the solutions in one domain and how these trigger new solutions in other domains.3. Perception: Once their curiosity was triggered, their visit to the exhibition was organised to enrich their repertoire and also reinforce their confidence.4. Pursuit of innovation: After briefing about the fieldwork, children were divided into four groups comprising privileged and underprivileged children.5. Practice: Each group visited one slum area of Delhi; Bhalaswa, Yamuna Pustha, Batla House and Kusumpur Pahari to interact with the local communities, children and others to observe and study their day to day problems. 6. Presentation of solutions: Each group sketched the problems they saw and presented their ideas to solve them.Untiring cyclesOne of the most fascinating features of the idea competition was the perspective of the children. What we adults regard as normal, children look at with different and interesting perspectives. Once their curiosity is triggered, there is no looking back. Hence, during the ‘on the spot idea competition’ the children came up with brilliant ideas using cycles. Where we normally consider a cycle only as a tool for transportation, these children saw it as a livelihood and subsistence tool. |
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| Volume No. |
HB26(2) 16-17, 2015 |
