In 2004, India introduced mandatory environmental education in schools. In the decades since then, many more children have grown up learning about environmental issues. The increasing incidence of extreme weather events, pollution and the pandemic have also brought the effects of environmental deterioration closer to the lives of children from various backgrounds. 

In many ways, today’s kids, cutting across social groups, are far more environmentally aware than before. Yet the availability of engaging, age-appropriate environmental literature that contextualises environmental developments for young readers and offers them rich and diverse perspectives on nature remains limited.

The Nature Writing for Children Certificate Course is an attempt to find and cultivate new ideas and voices to promote the growth of such literature. It caters to writers, educators, environmentalists and social workers who might have a wealth of stories and possibly a pre-existing audience but do not have the guidance to transform their writing into manuscripts that can be considered for publishing.

The two-day online certificate course will help writers with stories learn the essentials of nature writing for children and polish their writing through professional feedback. It will also offer them an opportunity to network with people who work within the intersection of childhood, literature on the environment and publishing.

The course builds on Azim Premji University’s series of talks on ​‘Nature Writing for Children’ that promote books that have been published in recent times and the various writers working within this field.

The course is intended to be hands-on, focused on learning via doing. Participants will not only learn, but would also need to engage critically with environmental writing for children to understand the importance of such literature and what gives it value – in the eyes of publishers as well as readers.

On successful completion of the course, participants will be able to

• Critically engage with writing and books on the environment that cater to young readers
  
• Learn what makes for engaging environmental writing for children
  
• Fine-tune their rough drafts for possible publication

The course is designed and intended for people interested in writing books on the topic of nature and the environment for children. The course is for adults (18+ years) and will be offered in English.

All participants need to submit a draft write-up – fiction/non-fiction/picture book in English that is based on nature. This should be done using the register button at the beginning of this page.

We don’t need any illustrations at this point. Translations from regional languages are also permitted. The draft write-up doesn’t have to be final or complete, but the writer’s idea should come through in it. 

We also need a brief summary of the writer’s idea. 

The draft write-up should be within 2000 words, and the summary should be within 500 words. Your submission can have fewer words, but cannot exceed the word limit.

The last date for applying is 31 December 2023.

The last day for fee payment is 5 January 2024. The decision of the evaluation committee will be final.

For any queries, please write to shashwat.​dc@​apu.​edu.​in

The participants will be awarded a Certificate of Participation after successfully attending all the days of course.

In this online certificate course, we are looking at four units of learning interspersed with author interactions.

Unit 1: Environmental Literature for Children: The Indian Scenario (Day 1)

This unit will introduce participants to what comprises environmental literature, the different themes, how these are not always restricted to nature conservation and non-fiction, the challenges and opportunities within environmental writing for children and how these books have fared.

Unit 2: Environmental Literature for Children: Reading the Audience (Day 1)

This unit will be led by an educator who works closely with children. It will dwell upon how they find these books for children, how they engage with them within and outside the classroom, and how children have responded to various books – both the good and the not-so-good.

Unit 3: Environmental Literature for Children: Critical Review of Writings (Day 2)

In this session, instructors would apply what was covered in the previous two units to share initial feedback on all the submissions made for the course, so participants can consider polishing these for submission.

This course will be led by people who have engaged critically with environmental writing for young people as publishers, editors, authors, and educators.

Unit Leaders

When Bijal Vachharajani is not reading a children’s book, she is writing or editing one. She is the author of multiple planet-friendly books including A Cloud Called Bhura, Savi and the Memory Keeper and When Fairyland Lost Its Magic, and a climate worrier. 

One of India’s foremost children’s book curators, Vidya Mani is the co-founder of Funky Rainbow, a much-loved independent children’s bookshop in Bengaluru. Vidya was the managing editor of the children’s book review site Goodbooks, and helped institute The Hindu Young World-Goodbooks Awards for children’s books. She also runs a content and design studio called Melting Pot that creates children’s books and magazines for publishers and NGOs and currently heads the general fiction and non-fiction books programme at the Green Literature Festival. 

Curators:

Shashwat DC is a part of the Communications team at the University and manages integrated Research Communications. He is an experienced Editor with two decades of experience in media with a background in creative writing, ideation, editing, and directing projects for Digital and Print platforms. He is the Editor and Founder of sus​tain​abil​i​tyze​ro​.com, a portal dedicated to sustainability, CSR, environment and social development issues in India.

Meghaa Gupta has worked in Indian children’s publishing for over a decade and writes on history and the environment for young and lay readers. Her picture book A Home of Our Own (Tulika, 2018) is part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Book Club and she is also the author of a critically-acclaimed series of history books on Independent India published by the children’s imprint of Penguin Random House — Unearthed: An Environmental History of Independent India (2020) and After Midnight: A History of Independent India (2022). Meghaa holds a Masters in Environmental Humanities from the UK and leads the Young People’s programme at the Green Literature Festival.