A mobile community education centre aimed at educating parents and primary school children on health and creative writing has been inaugurated at the Glen Taylor School in Glen Innes on Thursday, May 24.
More than 130 parents and children gathered at the inaugural event who shared a meal made by renowned chef Jinu Abraham, and a brief educational session on healthy eating was also conducted.
“This kind of a programme targeting parents, and primary school children is a first of its kind, and we look forward to spreading this programme to other schools over time,” says Dr Sharad Paul, founder of this project.
Dr Paul is a skin MD, a scientist and a social entrepreneur, and runs several programmes under his initiative Baci Foundation Charitable Trust.
Dr Paul's Foundation has run several literacy programmes for over a decade. His first annual short story competition was run in 2006, and the winning school received a new library of books, and the child received e-learning tools like iPads or video cameras from his foundation.
Dr Paul teaches a creative writing class for the students as he believes creativity has been shown to improve math, science and overall learning. Dr Paul has also served on the National Commission of UNESCO as literacy adviser for nearly a decade.
“I have been running literacy programmes in schools for well over a decade – personally visiting low-decile schools to teach creative writing, and also building school libraries. My bookstore, Baci Lounge, used to support these ventures while it was in operation,” Dr Paul said.
The idea with the mobile community learning centre is to educate parents several fronts, the most important being healthy eating habits to be taught to the children, and creating writing sessions for the children during the evening.
“It is obvious that poor education and poor health have common denominators, and therefore this year I have personally funded the building of this classroom to run additional community education classes on good eating and healthy choices for pupils at the school and their families,” he added.