Enhanced cultural awareness is an integral part of Global Citizenship Education (GCED). It is crucial to develop an understanding of one’s own culture and an ability to respect diversity. One must learn to critically appreciate culture, explore the elements of culture and heritage and do away with hypocrisy that might be ingrained in culture. We at Sattva wanted to enhance the cultural awareness and bring the heritage to the local community. Indian culture is often looked down upon for the stereotypes, superstitious beliefs and what not. We wanted to go beyond and bring to the audience the real heritage that we must be proud of. We also felt that the youth is so caught up with popular culture that they often are not introduced to or engaged with the rich heritage of the region, or country. While the youth are well-aware about Bollywood songs that objectify women, and often use discriminatory language; they are often not connected with the heritage that includes classical dance forms, classical music and more. A central question here was what is it that we want to pass on to the next generation? How do we promote critical understanding of culture among community members?  With this thought, we organised a performing arts show wherein we invited the legendary Kathak (Indian classical dance form) Guru, Vidushi Saswati Sen and the students of Kalashram, Delhi to present performances and enhance people’s understanding of the heritage of India. They presented eight performances showing the nuances of Kathak, and telling stories from our heritage.

The Director, Rajvi Trivedi also presented three solo performances and one with the team. She has received training in the art from the last fifteen years and she has been teaching since the last five years. With her Guru’s permission, she performed the solo pieces. She presented one performance integrating the idea of transformative and GCED. The performance was written and recorded by Rajvi in Hindi, for everyone to understand and was titled ‘Nayi Subah’- meaning A New Dawn- Indicating transformation of the education system. Rajvi believes that the rich heritage must reach more and more people and that the arts can be a powerful medium for spreading awareness and changing mindsets. Through her performances, she urged the local community members to not only enhance cultural understanding, but also dive deep into the aims of education in the 21st century. She wanted parents and families to think about these questions- Why do we send our children to schools? What is the need to step away from conventional methods of teaching?

As a part of this program, Rajvi launched her very first book “Beyond the Classroom” and Sattva’s first edition of magazine “Ripples of Change”. The magazine contains artwork by participants of events held at Sattva, and by participants who felt the need to create something and express their thoughts about global issues. The magazine was an outcome of our events and also a way to raise our voices and spread awareness among the community members. There were no tickets for the show. We reached people through institutions, press and personal invitations. It was open for all. The program was a huge success and we had around 600 people who attended the show. It was organised in Zaverchand Meghani Auditorium, Bhavnagar, Gujarat.