If the little children from the Karmali village in North Goa could tell the story of their polluted lake and how this could be prevented, they only have Shyamalee Roy and the Mitsuko Trust to thank.
Dressed up as birds, the children put up a stirring theatrical performance at the Goa Science Centre, Panjim in October last year. They emoted and danced to the haunting tunes of the western classical flute and guitar to tell us their story of environmental damage ever so lucidly.
Shyamalee Roy, resident of Porvorim started the Mitsuko Trust in 2009 with the clear objective of empowering children and giving them the right to participate.The Karmali project is the latest in a series of achievements registered by the Trust.
Invited by the state government to set up vibrant, Bal Gram Sabhas (village child committees) in the villages of San Estevam and Karmali, the Mitsuko Trust got down to work in right earnest. This has seen Shyamalee and her team engage with the Karmali children regularly since 2011, highlighting the fact that they have a right to participate in matters concerning their village. “They are a wonderful bunch of children, concerned about the damage being caused to their lake. Hence, it was not very difficult to motivate them,” says Shyamalee. To begin with Shyamalee was the key coordinator for the Bal Gram sabha, but as she explains in the course of our conversation in her Panjim office a few days back, the village sarpanch is now the coordinator.
Mitsuko Trust’s credo has always been to encourage school children to articulate their views and opinions freely. This is how, the Mitsuko centre, which operates from a building in central Panjim, attracts school children through the week. Children are allowed to draw, paint, write and recite their work and give vent to their feelings and aspirations. Besides the traditional crayons, paints and brushes, children can use computers to write and express themselves. However, as Shyamalee told the Herald, she is happiest when children can express their thoughts through the medium of song, dance and theatre.
This is how Shyamalee tied up with theatre exponent and dancer, Arundhati Chattopadhyaya of Soccoro, who trained the children perform the Marathi play, ‘Kute gela swach pani’ (where has the clean water gone?) to best articulate the Karmali children’s woes.
Of course, as Shyamalee explained, the project involved a lot of hard work, time and effort. According to her, the children were keen to articulate the woes of their village lake which was deteriorating because of open defecation and plastic waste that was being dumped along its shores. The children, who had observed the dwindling number of migratory birds at their lake were worried. It is this aspect that has been highlighted in the play.
Ever the practical woman, Shyamalee not only responded with the idea of a play to highlight the children’s problems, but also mooted the idea of dry toilets in the villagers’ homes to mitigate the problem of open defection. In fact, the toilet project which began slowly with two toilets, will soon see 25 more toilets being fixed in the village with the help of a national media house.
“We worked with the Karmali children for nearly eight months to put up the play. They were introduced to the various aspects of theatre like sound, music and script writing, so that they could get a holistic idea of theatre,” says Shyamalee. According to Shyamalee, the basic theme for the play was suggested by the village children.
According to Shyamalee, the village panchayat office doubled as the sets and the popular artist, Ramdas Gadekar even painted the walls with birds to match the theme of the play. The play has had a run of five shows across the state.
According to Shyamalee the Mitsuko Trust is named after Shyamalee’s Japanese friend, who succumbed to cancer in the early 2000s. “It was Mitsuko’s constant resolve to help and alleviate the suffering of underprivileged children that led to the formation of this Trust after her demise,” says Shyamalee.
Shyamalee has had an interesting career. Starting off as a space-selling executive with leading national media houses, she gravitated to a stint in market research, before finally settling down to serious social work beginning with the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC), followed by a stint with Child Rights Goa and finally the Mitsuko Trust.
Today, this affable lady, mother of a teenaged daughter, is gung-ho about her future projects, which include the government’s ‘beti bachao-beti padao’ initiative.
“Yes, we are very excited about the ‘beti-bachao’ project and have started work with the Karmali children once again and should be ready with a theatrical presentation very soon,” says Shyamalee.
For more details: www.justmitsuko.com
