Gurgaon Children’s Literature Festival returns with its 2nd Edition
Gurgaon: In order to build a passion for reading among children and parents, Vega Schools has rolled out the 2nd edition of their flagship Literature fest for children from 20th to 21st January 2018. Gurgaon Children’s Literature Festival is the first and only Litfest in Gurgaon which brings awareness about reading good literature among children and helps them explore a new world of possibilities by discovering the joy of immersing in a story through various engaging mediums.
GCLF 2018 witnessed the presence of a renowned author and commentator – Gurcharan Das who enlightened parents on the first day of the festival through life-changing lessons to raise a passionate child. The Litfest featured India’s most talented personalities in the world of literature and storytelling. Many award-winning children’s authors, nationally and internationally acclaimed storytellers, renowned theatre artists and published illustrators were also present to add a new dimension to the festival.
“We need a directional change to move our children away from gadgets and malls and bring them close to reading and story telling. This is an effort to move the nidle in that direction. We are extremely honoured and encouraged by the fact that this two day ‘ only children’s litfest ‘ in Gurgaon has been received so well by the parent of Gurgaon.We will not stop here but through our free community library we will keep doing several followup sessions to take the effort forward”, said Avishek Roy, Founder of GCLF and Head Community Outreach at Vega School Gurgaon.
GCLF 2018 conducted exciting sessions for children in different age groups of 3-6 years, 7-9 years and 10-12 years and their parents.
Day 1 of the festival entailed engaging sessions of storytelling for children of different age groups in different forms. This included storytelling in the form of music, dance, drama, reading and writing, and through puppets. Apart from storytelling, creative workshops and activities related to art and craft, reading and writing were also organized. Ajit Narayan, a cartoonist and a published illustrator, conducted a workshop for 7-9-year-old children that involved a lot of creativity to make cartoon sketches. Theatre acts and plays were also enacted stories based on various books, taking literature to another level. A renowned classical dancer, Tanya Saxena performed a dance recital which was actually a narration of a story through dance mudras.
Day 2 of the festival will feature exciting storytelling sessions and puppet making workshop for children aged between 3 and 6 years. There will also be an exciting storytelling session by globally recognized storyteller – Geeta Ramanujam (the Founder of Kathalaya) for children. She will also take a storytelling masterclass for parents to help them understand the art of storytelling which can further help them engage their children with good literature. Furthermore, there will be fun oriented poetry writing workshops for 10- 12 years of children that explored the art of Haiku and writing Limerick. Additionally, there will also be interactive programs for parents which included a special session with Dr. Shelja Sen, a well-known child psychologist to help parents develop healthy reading habits in their children.
GCLF is a brilliant platform to guide parents to pass on the love for reading as a virtue to their children in a way that’s most likely to become a passion. Last year, GCLF had firmly set the foundation for a reading culture in Gurgaon, while in 2018, GCLF has become synonymous with profound literature and the happiness it brings to each child every year. Highly engaging sessions of storytelling and interactive workshops drew the attention of over 3,000 parents and children this year. Parents and children also explored a well-curated collection of books from national and international publishers which were on sale. As a token of appreciation and a memoir from GCLF, each child was also presented a fun reading planner for 2018 that would encourage them to read more books and think critically at the same time.