Context 

40 culturally diverse students of an international school in Germany came to Bangalore to engage with socio-economically disadvantaged students and their city. We designed the program to allow students to engage through different inter-disciplinary lenses of ecology, physicality and aesthetics. RBANMS is a 150 year old school in the middle of Banaglore that is funded and facilitated by a trust. The students of GESS also historically, aesthetically, linguistically, commercially and gastronomically engaged with the city and their reflections were facilitated through an embodied and sensorial way. This was all intended to meet the goals of their CAS (Creativity, Activity and Service) component of their IB curriculum. 

Process 

Creativity, Activity and Service informed all the sessions that included engaging with Bangalore. We facilitated diverse experiences with food, arts and craft culture, festivals and religious culture and most importantly a cross- peer interaction of library revitalisation. 

They made their own golus as a part of the Dussehra celebration, designed their own reflective journals and learnt from and engaged with blockprinting practices with artisans in Bangalore. We spent time engaging in creative embodied reflection at Cubbon Park, Bangalore Fort and Palace and in understanding the space of the school. 

The service component was strong in the way that through their choice of engagement and revitalised the library. This meant an analysis of the current state, the needs of the space and a way to prioritise and design the space and arrangement of books in a way that encouraged community and learning.