Katha Bunaun - The Storytelling Workshop

“I had this vision of a world full of characters who had powers that would fight and bring peace. I knew the names of these characters and how they would look like all in my head. In Katha Bunaun, I got to explore this. After the completion of all activities on the first day, my first draft really encouraged me to keep on writing the story; adding characters, settings, and climax. On the second day, when I learned how to add details, dialogues and character description, I remember how overwhelmed I felt. I thanked my facilitators on the spot for giving me this opportunity to learn more about story writing. I will repeat what I told them— I will write a book of the story I created in Katha Buanun and I will publish it when I get older." -Sohan Adhikari, Grade 8, Katha Bunaun Participant, Bhanubhakta Memorial School, Panipohari


Learners’ Hub: Katha Bunaun is a week-long of story writing and story presentation workshop. Through this program, young learners grasp new and fun ways to improve core reading, writing, critical and, creative thinking skills through storytelling. Katha Bunaun is a unique program where we conduct different activities to teach students various aspects of stories such as character building, the introduction of conflict, resolving conflicts, genres of stories, writing a conclusion and so on.

The program intends to use storytelling as an activity to help students to overcome their fear and hostility in terms of writing and reading by finding innovative ways to accommodate different learning styles. The activities conducted in the session will be emphasized on interactive learning and teamwork skills. The program also helps students engage in important processes of self-realization and verbalizing emotions, using their character as a medium. Activities such as Story puzzle, Spin the Story, Let's Twist and so on have been designed to allow students to identify and hone their skills in the medium of storytelling that they choose. The medium of expressions has ranged from monologues to rap songs. 

The program starts with a pre-evaluation where the students are assessed based on different metrics. This will help us understand how much the students have grown and learned as the program progresses, and match it with a post-evaluation. The pre-evaluation allows the team to understand their students much better which will help them run the classes in an efficient and effective manner.

(Pre & Post Evaluation of Ms. Muna Sunar from Katha Bunaun VI) 

The program consists of various forms of audio-visual aids such as video interpretation, genre identification, movie discussions;  group activities such as story prompts, brainstorming, puzzles, story development; outdoor and ice-breaking activities; and story and character presentation.
In the past 3 years, we have conducted 19 Katha Bunaun Sessions and worked with 372 students, most of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds where the potential for creative expression often goes unnoticed and unexplored. From this fundraiser, we are planning on providing this outlet to 150 more students, all studying in public schools where such opportunities are scarce. At the end of the project, we are planning to develop a children's magazine named, 'Buneko Katha', which will be the collection of the stories developed by our students to give them a platform to showcase their work. 

About Canopy Nepal
Canopy Nepal is a team of visionary youths working in the field of education, skill and leadership development, diversity and inclusion. We work in collaboration with like-minded individuals and organizations to achieve our targets of empowering our beneficiaries with skills they need to bring about positive change in the community. Canopy Nepal aims at creating an environment where individuals have a choice to equip themselves with skills and abilities of lifetime importance. The organization intends to promote intercultural understanding among diverse groups by means of various programs.

Canopy Nepal currently runs the following programs:
1. Learners’ Hub: EIC
2. Canopy Nepal Scholarship Program (CANSHIP)
3. Understanding Education: Panel Discussion Series
4. Learners’ Hub: Katha Bunaun
5. Learners’ Hub: Lekhaun
6. Young Learners’ Camp (YLC)
7. FONAI Education Scholarship (FESSHIP)
8. Green Minds

In the past 3 years, we have worked with 2,203 students through our interactive programs and given full scholarships to 119 scholars studying at different levels. We have conducted 104 trainings and workshops to cater to our students and worked with more than 40 International and National organizations to work towards a better education system.