Feed back.

Inculcating feed back within our ongoing conservation education and awareness programme is an action the need for which we have ever agreed upon but seldom moved beyond! The reactions and perceptions of the participants (and non participants) towards the efforts are pertinent towards designing the next stage of the programme as also comprehending the efficacy of the actions being undertaken.

Seeking feedback by way of feedback forms towards end of sessions is an idea that has never appealed to me. Seeds of this, I realize, lie in the manner in which I have come across these forms being applied at various forums. During recent weeks select communications have led me to understand that the programme is moving ahead on desired lines.

A senior government official wrote an email wishing us in our endeavour with a request to change the colour and font on the blog such that it could be a more friendly read! He was earlier based at Tuipang where we organize our programmes and we had been dropping in for sharing our experiences at his office; of course over cups of hot tea and nice puris.

A student from Donbosco school where we regularly organized our programmes during the previous academic year met me recently in the Saiha market and asked if we would during the coming academic year organize programmes for the class he has just moved to? The smile and affirmative nod on my face had him immediately suggest that unlike the previous year where we only ‘talked’ of usage of binoculars we should arrange for him and other participants to feel and use them! I loved the excitement in his eyes~

The other day I got a call from a teacher at Donbosco who has been closely associated with our programmes saying he had just returned from a visit to a friend in town and had seen a pet ~ a baby monkey from the wild. He thought it was the Hoolock gibbon that we had discussed (with help of pictures) in course of our sessions but was unsure on account of the baby being very young. He asked if I could come with him, take pictures of the hauhuk-veitu and explore possibilities of its getting to its ‘actual’ home.

At the onset of a fresh academic session, pondering over these reactions has been both intriguing and invigorating ~