<p>Two short movies made by Samuel Venkatesan, who hails from a remote village in Krishnagiri district in Tamil Nadu and who had just returned to India after attending a key UNICEF summit in Italy, focus on combating superstition and raising awareness against corporal punishment in schools.<br /><br />Venkatesan was one of the three Indians at the Junior-8 (J8) summit earlier this month, where youngsters from nations attending the G-8 meet discussed burning present-day issues.<br /><br />The energetic and vivacious teenager feels improving the education system should be the priority area for India and when a local NGO trained him in film making, the subjects he chose for his works also echoed his views.<br /><br />One of his films dealt with corporal punishment. "I felt that beating up a student is not the way. The problems can be solved by teachers through dialogue," he says. <br /></p>.<p>The class XII student, the first in his village to complete secondary education, was also perturbed about a local superstition about presence of 'ghosts' in a nearby jungle - crossing which was necessary to reach a school. So, his other film went on to bust the myth.</p>.<p>Venkatesan wants to go film studies in future, but his immediate plan is something else. "I want to form school-based monitoring groups, which will then be spread all over India to raise demands of children before the government," he says. </p>
<p>Two short movies made by Samuel Venkatesan, who hails from a remote village in Krishnagiri district in Tamil Nadu and who had just returned to India after attending a key UNICEF summit in Italy, focus on combating superstition and raising awareness against corporal punishment in schools.<br /><br />Venkatesan was one of the three Indians at the Junior-8 (J8) summit earlier this month, where youngsters from nations attending the G-8 meet discussed burning present-day issues.<br /><br />The energetic and vivacious teenager feels improving the education system should be the priority area for India and when a local NGO trained him in film making, the subjects he chose for his works also echoed his views.<br /><br />One of his films dealt with corporal punishment. "I felt that beating up a student is not the way. The problems can be solved by teachers through dialogue," he says. <br /></p>.<p>The class XII student, the first in his village to complete secondary education, was also perturbed about a local superstition about presence of 'ghosts' in a nearby jungle - crossing which was necessary to reach a school. So, his other film went on to bust the myth.</p>.<p>Venkatesan wants to go film studies in future, but his immediate plan is something else. "I want to form school-based monitoring groups, which will then be spread all over India to raise demands of children before the government," he says. </p>