New Delhi : As part of a three-year project in arts education, the British Council, UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities today celebrated two years of its journey of the World Voice Project (WVP) in India. The showcase saw close to 300 students perform on WVP songs with the celebrated singer Mohit Chauhan and Metzo Djatah, much-admired singer from Senegal at Bahai House of worship (Lotus Temple).

The World Voice Project, launched in 2013 in the UK, supports young people to develop musicality and contributes to wider learning through singing as a fundamental, expressive art, that cuts across languages The Project is currently being implemented in 12 countries across the globe and is championed by well-known musicians and singers in each country. The widely acknowledged singing icon, Mohit Chauhan has been championing the World Voice Project in India since its launch in March 2013.

Rob Lynes, Director, British Council India said “We are very pleased to be in the second successful year of the World Voice Programme. The British Council India’s Arts in Education programmes introduce school audiences and trainers to using new content and methods of teaching arts from the UK within Indian school curricula. Within this strand of our work, the World Voice Programme builds capacity of teachers to use the arts to develop students’ life skills, such as innovative and creative thinking, social adaptability, cultural awareness, communicational and inter-personal skills.”

He further continued, “We work closely with policy makers and opinion formers, with central and state government as well as private schools, to influence the development and implementation of Arts in Education across India.”

The Arts Education programme of the British Council through the World Voice Project  and the Drama in Classroom Project, is a pioneering endeavour of the organisation to support the government in its efforts to promote education for all, in the most creative and effective manner.

“It’s been a very fulfilling two-year journey with the World Voice Programme, interacting with children from various sections of the society, covering a huge spectrum in Delhi and the far east in the state of Meghalaya. It was also enriching to share our proud heritage of Indian folk songs with children in the UK and Scotland and with fellow musicians from Africa and the middle-east. I’m personally interested in folk songs and this project furthers the cause of promotion and preservation of our cultures by bringing them alive through singing.” adds Mohit Chauhan.

More than 1500 teachers have been trained across India in the states of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Bihar, Sikkim and Meghalaya. The states have further cascaded the programme to another 500 teachers and integrated the training module with their own state’s early learning (reading, writing and arithmetic) campaigns. An estimated 200,000 children have been exposed to the programme through their teachers.

Through this programme the British Council along with its partners NCERT, SCERT, RMSA and SSA encourage children to enjoy their school with more opportunity for engaging with the arts. Arts provide the opportunity to children to build skills such as communication, leadership, confidence and team builiding. In today’s competitive world arts brings about a well rounded personality of a child and are as important as English, Math or Science. The three- year project hopes to reach out to ten states in India and to about 20 countires across the world including in Africa, Asia and America.