International Children‚s Festival of Performing Arts The Mumbai-based Ryan International Schools Group (RISG), promoted in 1976 in a small shed with an initial batch of five students by education entrepreneur Dr. Augustine Pinto, has since metamorphosed into India‚s largest privately owned school chain. Currently, RISG comprises 107 primary-cum-secondaries with an aggregate enrollment of 200,000 students facilitated by 10,000 teachers spread over 15 states across India.Committed to providing holistic, broad-based education to its students, Ryan International stages several international conventions/events to promote camaraderie, linkages and extra-curricular education. In 2001, RISG initiated its first Indian Model United Nations Conference (INMUN) followed by the first International Children‚s Theatre Festival the next year. In October 2006, RISG‚s 6th INMUN attracted 500 delegates from 110 schools in India and abroad.More recently, the group‚s 8th International Children‚s Festival of Performing Arts (ICFPA) which was staged in New Delhi over six days in end November (2007), received widespread publicity in India and abroad. EducationWorld‚s special correspondent Autar Nehru filed this report from Delhi.The Ryan International Schools Group hosted its spectacular 8th International Children‚s Festival of Performing Arts in New Delhi from November 23-28. ICFPA 2007 attracted a record number of 5,000 children, teachers, artists and educationists from 30 countries and over 100 schools in India to New Delhi‚s National Bal Bhavan, where they made common cause for world peace.Perhaps the biggest children‚s festival held in India, the 8th ICFPA featured 200 events of dance, drama, music, puppetry, workshops, theme nights and other ceremonies during the six-day cultural extravaganza. “God created a desire in our hearts and gave us a vision that we should connect with different types of people within our nation and the whole world. To do it, He gave us passion and we embarked upon this auspicious journey eight years ago. We felt that if this passion can work for five or ten countries, it can be pursued on a larger scale as well and credit goes to Jesus for making our efforts successful,” says Grace Pinto, the charismatic managing director of RISG, explaining the rationale of this annual multinational children‚s festival.Given the great importance accorded to co-curricular education ‚ music, dance, painting, pottery etc ‚ in the 107 Ryan International schools countrywide, hosting an international performing arts festival for children seemed a natural fit. “The medium of performing arts leaves lasting impressions on audiences, and we encourage children from diverse countries to showcase their culture to celebrate diversity and foster mutual respect in the cause of world peace,” says Utkarsh Marwah, festival director. The seeds of ICFPA were sown in the millennium year when RISG staged its first National Children‚s Theatre Festival simultaneously in Mumbai, Ludhiana, Jaipur, Surat and Raipur. Subsequently, it became an annual event and from 2003, foreign participation was invited transforming it into an international festival. Since then, it has been hosted in Delhi. “Delhi has good infrastructure and a theatre culture; besides events of this scale can only be managed here,” explains Marwah.In its latest avtar ICFPA, which routinely attracts…
