Karomadom kids all set for their grand debut

Thiruvananthapuram: Kathakali

chenda

maestro Kalamandalam Krishnadas was presented with an unprecedented task when the NGO Don Bosco Veedu Society brought a bunch of school boys from a city slum before him with a request to teach them, a year ago.

Knowing how music and art could transform individuals, he took up the task as a challenge. One year down the line, Krishnadas is a content man, with his wards all set to make their grand debut at Theerthapadamandapam on Friday evening.

“Chenda training is not an easy thing. With the students forced to learn the rhythm on stones with bare hands for the first nine months of the course, many of the boys discontinued the training,” he said.

Tony James, the project coordinator of

Karimadom

Education and Empowerment Network (KEEN) of Don Bosco Veedu Society, said that all the kids chosen for the programme were either from very poor families or from broken families, with single parents.

“We started off with 27 boys but now the strength is only 11. However, the plus side of it is that there has been a marked improvement in the academics of the 11 who stuck on, as it helped them stay sharp and focused,” said James, who had been working close with the families of Karimadom Colony for the past three years.

The youngest among the students is just nine years old and the eldest is 15.

“Living in a place where there are too many elements to distract the children, it wasn’t an easy task to nurture these kids into what they are now,” said Amala P C, a resident of the colony and a volunteer of the Don Bosco Veedu Society since 1992. She would assume the role of a guardian, picking up the boys from their houses after they return from school and take them to the Don Bosco’s office at Manacaud for practice sessions. She had been doing this without fail for the past one year.

According to Fr Thomas P D, the director of Don Bosco Veedu Society and Childline, the initiative was part of a project to achieve holistic development of children of Karimadom Colony through art and education. Empowering them by giving them an alternative source of income and preventing them from getting into anti-social activities were also their agenda.

“We have plans to form a Panjarimelam troupe with these children,” he said.


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