Oral Histories Exchange Project between Children in India and Pakistan

Via an email sent by Chintan Girish Modi

Routes 2 Roots is currently seeking volunteers for an Indo-Pak Friendship Project, ‘Oral Histories’ in Delhi & Mumbai.

Routes2Roots are a Delhi-based Non-profit organization, constantly persevering hard to abridge the distance between India and the SAARC countries in particular and other countries in general through music, art and people to people contact. We believe that art emanates such an overpowering aura to make people one, forgetting all their national differences.

About Oral histories Project:

We believe that the fastest way to bring peace between India and Pakistan is to make human to human connections, feel the relationship and build bridges and what better way to start than to connect kids!

Oral Histories project is a 16 -month information-exchange program between Karachi- Mumbai and Lahore-Delhi that involves 1200 secondary school children who study in 1low-income school and 1 high income school. Students in Delhi and Mumbai who rarely have a connection with those across the border, in Pakistan, will be encouraged to develop a relationship with their counterparts in Lahore and Karachi through sustained exchanges while building an alternate sense of identity and awareness, as well as have a better understanding of their shared history and culture. The program is a joint collaboration between Routes2Roots and The Citizens Archive of Pakistan.

We hope that by the end of the project, there will be a marked difference in the way students approach India-Pakistan ties.

Way to go:

– 5 schools from India and 5 schools from Pakistan share a dialogue about shared history and common bonds and build upon the trust deficit that exists between the two countries. – Four major projects are initiated on either side of the border lasting 3 months each. The projects make use of postcards, oral histories, photographs and letters, which are then displayed at corresponding schools.

– A total of 1200 students between the ages of 10 and 14 on both sides of the border have a sustained dialogue and through frequent exchanges develop relationships.

– All these exchanges are detailed on a website spearheaded by The Citizens Archive of Pakistan so that other schools and organizations see the models used and are encouraged to adopt it.

Anushree Gupta (New Delhi) [email protected] / +91 98108 13255
Apeksha Dodhia (Mumbai) [email protected] / +91 99870 76201