Promoting Sindhi language and culture among children

Sindhi Bal Utsav a festival of dance, drama and music by children at Shri Ram Centre is attracting full houses every day. A four day extravaganza which began on June 11 and ends today evening, is an attempt to promote Sindhi as a language.

Organised by Sindhi Academy in collaboration with Delhi Government it was inaugurated by the Chief Minister. Established in 1994 for propagation, promotion and development of Sindhi language, literature and culture as an integral part of composite culture of the City, the academy since its inception has been playing a catalytic role in the proliferation of Sindhi literary and cultural activities in the spheres of music, folk dances, seminars, symposia, short story, poetry, novel, literary criticism and drama etc. The goal is to achieve all-round development of Sindhi language, literature and culture.

The festival saw participation of children ranging from the age group of 6-16 in different activities like dance and singing to performing plays. The auditorium witnessed huge crowds consisting of proud parents and relatives of the participating children. Sindhu Mishra, Secretary, Sindhi Academy was happy to share that the event has been a hit, “We conducted this festival to promote our language, art and culture. It was a huge challenge for us as children do not learn regional languages nowadays. So to lure children we had to incorporate fun activities like dance, puppetry and theatre to draw them in.”

Talking about the lack of interest among children for regional languages, Sindhu said, “Parents are the first roadblocks for kids for they want their children to learn only English as the first language.” Which definitely defeats the cause of the mother tongue.