Education through Story-Telling

In September 2006, The Peace Fund gave generous funding to Tameer-e-Millat Foundation through Give2Asia, for a joint educational activity, whereby one hundred audio stories were to be developed and recorded to supplement education at over 50 TM Primary Schools located in Islamabad Capital Territory. Audio cassette players were also to be provided to the teachers, along with Training and Guidelines to use these story cassettes in classroom for educational purposes.

We have developed 104 Urdu audio stories that will be used to enhance education at Tameer-e-Millat Primary Schools. Initially these stories will be included in Story Period at 50 TM Primary Schools located in the outskirts of Islamabad Capital Territory. This activity will benefit over 1,500 students. 

The story contents range from historical and geographical to simple moralistic topics. Interesting characters and themes have been used to attract children’s’ involvement and interest

Teachers’ Training Workshops were held on Feb 08 and Feb 09, 2007 to explain the concept and usability of these audio stories in classroom activity. Complete sets of cassettes and stereos were also handed over to facilitate initiation of Story Periods in their respective schools.

All in all, this whole exercise has been a learning experience for us. Developing light, recreational and informative stories for children aged 5-12 yrs has been a challenge and adventure in its own right. We carried out extensive research and survey about the level of understanding of students, their tastes and preferences, format of narration as well as language barriers. Based on the survey results, we designed story guidelines and hired professional radio writers and narrators to carry out the task of developing and recording the selected stories. Out of a total of over 300 stories, 104 were selected as final drafts and were further processed to ensure simplicity of language, importance of subject and interest of project beneficiaries.

From start of September 2006 to end of January 2007, we divided our activities over 05 months. All steps from Conceptualization of Stories and Recording to Teachers’ Training Workshops and Disbursement of Audio Equipment have been successfully completed.

Teachers have been advised to initiate story periods in their schools five times a week. In every period, one story is to be played and explained to the students. Teachers will encourage class participation via Enactment and related exercises. Feedback will be invited every 2 months and the final report will be submitted by the teachers by the end of 06 months, by September 01, 2007.

TMF Team has been closely supervising and monitoring the Story Hour proceedings in its community school network and compiling success stories and feedback from various quarters. Children are taking keen interest in the stories and their enactments. They learn basic health and hygiene lessons and acquire moral values in a simple, fun-filled and interesting manner. TMF plans to undertake more projects of similar nature and benefit the underprivileged children of community schools, who have merit but no means.