To celebrate International Mother Tongue Day on 24th February 2018, a SEL team comprising of Dr. Vishnu Singh (secretary SEL) and two volunteers Ms Sapana and Mr Ajeet Chowdhary visited the Saraswati Bal Vidya Mandir with an aim to create mother tongue awareness among the school children. After a brief introduction by the principal, Mr. Sandeep Tiwari, the team started interacting with the children in Awadhi language. The children were astonished when they heard the team speaking Awadhi. This activity broke the barrier and prepared the ground for Dr. Vishnu Singh, who told them about the benefits of multilingualism as well as importance of mother tongue.

To involve school children in the activity the team asked them riddles and meaning of proverbs in Awadhi and gave away prizes to three winners. They also asked them to sing folk songs and tell folk tales. Surprisingly a student came forward to sing /ɑləhɑ/ – a number of ballads describing the brave acts of two 12th century Rajput heros.

It was a challenging yet gratifying experience for the team to explain the importance of mother tongue to these children who are always in awe of Hindi and English languages.