The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Gandhian ideals for students

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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Gandhian ideals for students

— Photo: S. R. Raghunathan

K. Shenbagavalli.

Mahatma Gandhi’s principles are as relevant today as they used to be, but one need not always follow the lecture approach while teaching them to the younger generation. This is what C. Shenbagavalli, joint secretary of the Gandhi Peace Foundation, Chennai follows. “We do not advise or lecture while addressing school students, but take the message through dance, song and drama,” she tells Liffy Thomas, while detailing the efforts of the foundation to ‘learn peace, act peace and spread peace.’

Located on Ambujammal Street in Alwarpet is Srinivasa Gandhi Nilayam, where the Gandhi Peace Foundation has a simple office on the first floor. C.Shenbagavalli, assisted by S. Kulandaisamy, secretary of the foundation, has been working to propagate Gandhian ideas for the last three decades.

“I came from Chengalpattu in search of a job and my first task here was to correct papers of a competition conducted on Gandhiji,” recalls Shenbagavalli, who later did a thesis in ‘Peace Education based on the Gandhian way.’

According to her, getting permission from schools is not always easy. The foundation therefore requests the school managements to give any free period or inform them whenever a teacher absent to that it could address the students.

“We look for conducting interactive workshops. Students from Corporation and Matriculation schools in Standard VI and VIII are our focus groups,” she says.

“We bring mischievous boys to our fold. Most of them become good friends who keep visiting us later,” Dr. Shenbagavalli says.

A new initiative, ‘Peace Education,’ in which students from Standard VI upward take an open-book exam on Gandhi’s autobiography, saw over 4,000 registrations this year. The foundation hopes to add more programmes.

“But we need volunteers and funds. Just spare an hour a week to volunteer teaching in a school,” she says.

Dr.Shenbagavalli does not believe in saying Gandhigiri is her mission. Instead, she says, “My job is my satisfaction.”

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