Creativity and Innovation by Little Minds

The Satya Bharti Skill Fest 2020 – Himachal Pradesh

In the last week of the month of May, Bharti Foundation introduced the Satya Bharti Skill Fest in 33 Government schools of Shimla district in Himachal Pradesh (including 30 partner schools). Under the initiative, five activities (Calligraphy, Poster making, best out of waste, slogan writing and creative writing) were conducted over a period of one week in which nearly 3,400 entries from students were received.

Bharti Foundation’s Satya Bharti Skill Fest is designed to promote skills among students while they are at home. A bouquet of activities are shared with the students by teachers which are designed to not only engage students but also to develop skills like creative thinking, creative writing etc., all of which are essential from an overall learning perspective. While scholastic assignments have its own tradition, Skill Fest is designed to keep students learning creatively. The activities include poster making, essay writing, calligraphy, creating best out of waste etc. and the interaction for participation remained completely virtual.

This Fest got an overwhelming response from students and teachers alike, hence, in collaboration with Samagra Shiksha, Bharti Foundation launched the Satya Bharti Skill Fest 2020 to all Government schools of Himachal Pradesh in the month of August. The objective of the Fest was to present the students with an opportunity to develop and showcase their skills in a happy and engaging environment, while they stay at home.

Guidelines and plan was prepared along with data capturing through Google form. To ensure smooth implementation of the initiative Samagra Shiksha office disseminated the guidelines and procedure to the schools, upto students’ level. During the five day virtual event that started on the 19^th of August, 2020 and concluded on the 24^th of August 2020, over 15,000 responses from 5,476 schools reached to the team. With over two lakh entries (56% of them being girls), over 45,000 participants were declared position holders (over 60% girls).

Despite the difficult times, the success of this online event brought the students from different classes together in exploring and upgrading their skillset. The Satya Bharti Skill Fest 2020 has set a foundation for many more transformational, replicable and scalable models, which can bring about a whole new way of learning and growing.