The Green Acres Academy, has launched a campaign for its students on the telling issue of colourism in India. This being as a part of a larger aspect of real world issues, which the academy consistently looks to expose its students to, in the quest to make them more responsible change makers and responsible future citizens.
Over the last few months, the students of the ‘Citizenship and Social Change program’ have been working on a project on the subject of ‘colourism in India’. The students recognised that, India, is extremely biased with regard to the colour of the skin. Fairer skinned people are often preferred to those with darker skin and are often treated differently. They realized this phenomenon has only become more severe with time. The students being eager to change this notion, decided to take this alarming matter up and find a way towards changing such deep-rooted practices.
Speaking at this initiative Mr. Rohan Parikh, Managing Director – The Green Acres Academysaid,
“We at Green Acres Academy believe that students can be the much needed Changemakers. In order to build these, children need to be exposed and should be privy to real life experiences which allow them to critically analyse real-world issues. Thus, allowing them to seek ways in which to address these within their communities. We have set out to break this stigma not only by providing qualitative education, but by enabling them to be responsible and caring individuals. Leading them to be aware citizens having a differentiated mind set”
The experiments conducted by the students, resulted in students looking into the causes and consequences of skin colour in schools, and its implications on society. One of the major findings by the students was that, there were no child-friendly resources on colourism available, especially in the Indian context. They were also exposed to stories of individuals who had faced extreme discrimination based on the colour of their skin. They learned about their experiences, the fears and battles they had to overcome to stand proud in their skin today.
As next steps to the program, the students will be looking to build such resources in different formats. First, through a picture book for younger children, to make the subject a little easier for them to understand. Second, would be to interview people and research stories of change to enable young children to realise that skin colour does not determine a person’s worth or success. They want to share this knowledge with others, by creating a myth buster video that offers perspective beyond what people are used to hearing in their everyday lives.
Through this social action project, students are looking to break the humiliation and myth of skin colour in the Indian society. They will look to provide more resources for future generations of students to look back on when faced with such stigma or when researching this topic.
