Designing Northeastern India for education
Chewang Rinchen Lepcha is an Animation Designer based in Gangtok, Sikkim and works in collaboration with Echostream Pvt. Ltd, a multi-disciplinary design studio in Gangtok. He is a graduate in Animation Film Design from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. Right after graduation, he worked in Mumbai for two years and decided to come back to Sikkim. During his time in Sikkim, he has collaborated with the various state government departments, private clients and NGOs to find best design solutions and practices in the mountain context.
Chewang had the opportunity to work with many organisations. His first and one of his major projects was Pokchi: the Red Panda (2016) which was a project for the Sikkim Biodiversity. The name Pokchi is often used to tease chubbiness which leads to bullying, so they used this name for the project because it is very catchy and to remove the stigma attached to it. Further, it has helped raise awareness among younger generation about the vital species of the region i.e Red Panda. Till now the film has gone to many schools in Sikkim. Some of the key takeaways were that a lot of children were able to recognize Pokchi and soon it became a favourite of all and since then 11th August is celebrated as Pokchi Day in schools of Sikkim.
Another of his major projects was a SERT Project-Kitab. This project had a similar intent like Pokchi. Usually education content is created by the Council in Delhi but some regions are not able to relate to the content. The Sikkim government was able to recognise this flaw and started the ‘Project Kitab’. The content was localised, 180 content writers were selected to write the contents. One of the chapters is ‘Things on my plate’ which starts with picture reading exercise, the picture had to have great details so Chewang tried to include all kinds of vegetables both below and above the ground, show community practices, terrain, secondary activities and so on, so that the child may see, think and decide for themselves. For story time, the Potato story was added which talks about empowering women. There was also the concept of opposites through visuals. Colouring exercises, recipe of salad, food song, local food, conversation between older generation and younger generation about food and farm to table concept was added to encourage the children to read.