Anweshana Montessori School from Bengaluru, landed up in Kotagiri on a rainy November morning on 27th November, for a Keystone campus tour. While we had initially planned a village and community visit for them, that had to be cancelled as the heavens opened up on us. So the students assembled for a short screening of the ‘Fragile Treasure’ movie and got to know about Keystone Foundation and its work over the last 25+ years in the landscape.
The 12 students (grades 6 and 7) and the 2 teachers who accompanied them were enthralled by the beauty of the Nilgiris, as also the cold misty weather that greeted them in campus. After a small hands-on activity with the NBR map jigsaw, the students started on the campus tour. They were very inquisitive about the musical culture of the communities in the landscape as they heard about the Irula music and about the project on archiving the local knowledge. At the community well-being section, they got to know the 4 main parameters along which the team assessed well-being as a state of body and mind while the biodiversity and restoration group gave them the history of sustainability research and restoration work done over the years.
At APPCL, the children heard firsthand how the producer company came into existence, and the rights of local communities to exercise their voice in the company. They were also shown the various value addition products made at various production centres. It was a sure draw to get them back again. Post lunch, the students got to visit the honey section and a taste of the original honey, a treat for all. The campus tour concluded with the nursery visit where they were shown native species of grasses and tree saplings.
Despite the damp weather, the school immensely enjoyed their short day visit and vowed to come back for a longer interaction and engagement with the land and the organisation, in the years to come.
