Students spread the message of voting in remote villages

Madurai: Even as the district administration is widely publicising the importance of voting in order to achieve the ambitious goal of 100% voting, a group of children is championing the same cause in a silent manner. The children, mostly from government schools, are enacting plays to drive home the message.
The group of 20 children reach the remote villages and enact their play and attract their attention.The team, comprising children in the age group between 8 and 15 years, has covered 10 villages including Kadavur, Vembarali and Podhumbu. "Wherever we go we get good response. We are able to easily mingle with the villagers since we also hail from villages," says T Jayam, a Class 8 student who is part of the play team.
The message is conveyed to the villagers quite easily since the children tell it in the way people can easily relate it themselves. The play titled 'Therdhal Padhavi Bodhai' touches upon various aspects of election including active participation of people in voting, choosing the right candidate and taking part in governance like attending gram sabha meetings.
"Villagers get attracted instantly since they are children. They are also adept in theatrical skills from the past experience during their campaign against alcohol through similar medium last year. They reached people from more than 20 villages last year," said A Thirumalai, a volunteer from Centre for Experiencing Social Cultural Interaction (CESCI), an NGO.
The children are beneficiaries of free evening tuition provided at village level by CESCI. They were taught the basics of theatre performance in the summer camps provided by the organisation.
Similar awareness campaigns is held every year and this year they chose to take up voting since election was round the corner. "The concept and script for the play are selected by the children. There are two volunteers who will help the children in shaping up their ideas," said Thirumalai.