Kathmandu has seen a significant rise in the number of workshops being held, with scriptwriting, photography to dance workshops. [break]
Apart from formal workshops, various individual workshops are also being held, and these workshops provide a space for people to share their likes and dislikes and socialize.
Workshops are sprouting up like wild mushrooms with people embracing them gladly as an alternate way of learning is growing.
“I think this rise in workshops can be attributed to the lack of entertainment,” says writing workshop facilitator Ayushma Regmi. “There is so much youth energy and desires but not many places to use this energy.
They are exposed to so many avenues of multimedia that they desire to learn how to manipulate these forms and this is where workshops can help them learn,” she adds.
Mostly free, workshops tend to be platforms for young people to meet other young people with similar interests.
Also, many young people these days choose an art form they use to express themselves, and through workshops, they can share their art with other people while learning to better themselves at it.
Young people tend to be very dynamic, wanting to experience different forms of art to indulge themselves in, and workshops tend to fulfill such needs by providing basic training in a group settings.
“I feel suffocated in the classroom, feel like I’m under surveillance and am afraid of giving the wrong answer or doing something wrong, but with workshops there aren’t any wrong answers,” says Bartika Rai, an undergraduate student and a regular workshop attendee.
She tells us how she learns about the different perspectives of people, how one piece of art can be interpreted in different forms. “It’s just amazing meeting the inspirational characters during these workshops and seeing the level of creativity out there,” she adds.
Workshops are usually conducted in small groups so that people can interact with each other and share ideas and stories.
A workshop hopes to do more by connecting young people so that they may learn something from each other, even outside the confines of the workshop. More creative in nature, workshops help people draw out their inner creativity.
“Many people react to different things, they are inspired by different forms of art, and we try to include inspiration while teaching,” says assistant facilitator Dipti Sherchan. “When we conduct a session on poetry, we try to mix various visual forms of art with texts, and suggest participants to draw the poem out. This helps in retaining information, in both textual and visual forms, which I think is far better than traditional lecture-based learning,” she adds.
Many young participants at these workshops tend to find better learning here than in the confines of the classroom.
The student-teacher hierarchy doesn’t exist and with friendly facilitators, participants feel like they are part of the discussion and not blindly following their teachers. Both the facilitators and participants learn from each other.
“Workshops aren’t professional trainings,” says Dipti, “We aren’t experts, and we don’t give away certificates. Workshops are just places where people from different backgrounds can come and learn. We believe in generating ideas and sharing them among each other, which is probably the best source for ideas and expressions,” she adds.
“My most successful workshop would be my first Scribble Wibble. We were all enthusiastic starters, brought together by the love of writing. I was experimenting and learning myself and the enthusiasm and the willingness on the part of the participants was the key. We bonded so well we would stay on for hours after the session was over, just hanging out, getting to know each other. There was so much bonding that happened during that time that many of the people who first came there have now become some of my closest friends. That’s my biggest achievement,” says Ayushma.
“A formal setting begets unwanted formality and awkwardness, but participating in a workshop does away with the unwanted formality. It is makes it more comfortable to learn as we get a chance to be a part of the group. We sit, informally, talk about various topics and build a connection with the other participants, and once that connection has been made, it gets easier to learn,” says Anshu Khada, a youth activist at Youth Engagement in Sustainability (YES) Nepal and an avid workshop attendee.
Schools and colleges also seem to be condoning workshops and leading on students to attend various types of workshops.
“I’ve been trying to organize as many workshops as I can at Thames. I want my students to participate in workshops because workshops provide a different type of learning. In contrast to the one-way study environment at lectures and classes, workshops work on participation and teamwork, providing a two-way study environment. I think students learn more this way and enjoy studying as well,” says Sanjeev Dahal, Coordinator for the Social Sciences Department at Thames International College.
Young people have a dynamic lifestyle with social and interaction needs that learning at workshops seems to provide.
Although it is far from replacing lectures and traditional forms of classroom teaching, workshops tend to spark creativity and instill free thinking in the youth along with learning.
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