ISLAMABAD: The two-day Islamabad Children’s Literature Festival started at Aiwan-i-Quaid in F-9 Park with a wide array of activities such as exhibitions, displays and stalls, competitions and learning sessions.

“Children should have opportunities for mental growth, gaining skills, accessing psycho-social evaluation and help and receiving mentoring and here that is realised through literature, poetry and creativity,” said retired Wing Commander Wali Imran Khalil, the event lead.

Kindle Foundation and National Book Foundation collaborated to organise the festival. The free entry and central venue made the event popular amongst parents at the weekend.

Many schools participated in the event by putting up stalls with activities and games while others brought students to perform tableaus.

Shamaila Idrees from a private school said: “Our students prepared various performances on the sustainable development goals which included puppetry shows and role play on deforestation, peace, pollution, quality education, five senses, elements of nature, affordable energy, critical thinking and many more topics.”

Farah Batool from another school said: “Our mission is that children who come to our stall should learn something even if it is a single new word. Kids should be as interested in Urdu as they are in English. There are a lot of things that children hear but do not understand. We have brought a lot of options in reading materials and mathematics worksheets from which a child can select what she or he is interested in and then we read and explain it to them.”

Maria Ali, dressed in a frock, said: “I am having a lot of fun. My friends were singing on the stage and I saw different shows.”

Other than schools, professional companies also produced entertaining shows.

Babar Nadeem of S.A. Events did an hour-long puppet show raising awareness of education.

Mariam Arshad and Alisha Riaz came to participate in the quiz competition.

Ms Arshad said: “We are first-year students in our A Levels. We don’t know what the quiz topics will be or what the format will be so we couldn’t prepare but it should be interesting.”

Shabnam Siddique, who was supervising a stall of baked goodies, said: “We are collecting funds for charity through our stalls. This is a fundraising scheme and we will be contributing to the dam fund. The students and teachers have worked together to bake brownies and other things. Other students are face painting. We participate in such events once in a while and it is a good experience for the students.”

Akbar Zaheer, who had brought his daughters to the festival, said: “It is very important to have places to take our children where they learn things and learn to love books. My daughters are already playing games on my phone and I worry that they won’t pick up books for entertainment.”

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2019