How to solve a problem like Himani

CHILDREN AS CONTENT CREATORS

A storybook turned into a tangible medium for sharing stories of local innovation or ‘jugaad’ from the hills of Uttarakhand. This project was about collaboration and resistance. I democratized the process of how and who designs content. The audience was allowed to create visuals for what they were reading. I also wanted art to be taken more seriously as a form of expression – part of this was achieved by training the teachers as well. Through a series of facilitated art workshops I created a small contextual library of patterns, objects, trees, animals, houses etc. for each region – which helped in enriching the visuals with familiar content.

Two things that made this book unique were; it was entirely drawn by local children from the Himalyan Public School, especially about the imaginative rural solutions that they came up with. Secondly the story was written in Uttarakhand, during the trip by the writer Mala Kumar who also interacted with them. It takes young readers step-by-step, through how any problem could be solved.

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