CHILDREN’S Literature Festival and the Teachers’ Literature Festival are now a populist social movement; in a short span of just over three years (November 2011- February 2015) these fes­tivals are drawing urgent attention to the centrality of children’s learning through multiple intelligences and senses.

The fourth Teacher’s Literature Festival (TLF) and the 16th Children’s Literature Festival (CLF) in the country was successfully organised recently by Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA) and Oxford University Press (OUP) at the Arts Council of Pakistan in Karachi, in support of the ‘I am Karachi’ campaign. The CLF was founded by Baela Raza Jamil of Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA).

Baela Raza Jamil while expressing her thoughts said, “Children from all social strata, across diverse geographies, languages and school systems come together sitting shoulder to shoulder, smiling and united at the festival to enjoy great names who engage with them in all humility, giving their best for that special encounter to bond generations.”

This year the TLF set new precedents by organising innovative and stimulating sessions that provided teachers with the opportunity to explore how they can include the message of peace in their teaching during these troubling times in the country. The tradition of Teacher’s Voice was also carried on this year to provide the teachers with a platform where they can share their experiences as well as have their voices heard.

In lieu with efforts of ‘I am Karachi’ and the troubling security situation of the country, this year CLF’s main focus was on promoting a message of peace and was dedicated to the beautiful children of Peshawar who lost their lives on December 16, 2014. Eleven of these young survivors and their parents as well as mothers of four of the students who lost their lives in the incident, attended the CLF. They were welcomed by a cheering crowd. Asfand, a victim of the Peshawar incident, was remembered when his mother shared her thoughts about the loss of her son. While Saad, a survivor of the incident, also told his story and thanked the organising committee of CLF and the attendees for their support.

Notable personalities from the field of academia and the literary world, including Rumana Hussain, Amra Alam, Zubeida Mustafa, Haseena Moin, Adeel Hashmi, Sharmila Farooqi, Dr Ruth Pfau, a German nun and a member of the Society of Daughters of the Heart of Mary, who has devoted the last 50 years of life to fighting leprosy in Pakistan, and many others actively participated in CLF as contributors and moderators for all three days. This year around 4000 teachers and 30,000 children attended the three-day festival.

— By a participant