Engaging children in the art of making puppets from waste materials

It’s been a year since floods hit Kerala and within days, over one million relief camps were opened that concentrated on rehabilitation. In order to overcome the ordeal, a few camps hosted engaging activities for children. Actor-puppeteer Sanoj Mamo was one among the volunteers who organised events in these camps. He hopped from one camp to other teaching children to make puppets with waste materials like cans, plastic bottles, covers and so on.

“Children are a vulnerable group of people on any disaster front. The 2018 Kerala floods had its toll on the minds of children and the best thing I could do then was to interact with children and engage them with exciting activities. Being a storyteller-puppeteer, I decided to put my skills and abilities to good use. Used plastic bottles, cans, clothes, etc, were lying around at the relief camps and I thought why not train children to make puppets out of these waste materials. They thoroughly loved making dolls with different type of materials and it was a huge learning experience for me as well,” says Sanoj Mamo.

From then on, he has been travelling across the country training children to make puppets out of recyclable waste materials. In collaboration with Theatre Akku, he will be holding a puppetry workshop in the city for children on August 18 at Backyard, Adyar. “Puppets are a great way to engage the attention and imagination of children of all ages. Apart from encouraging creativity, puppet making can increase children’s communication and social skills. Children who are reluctant to speak or read out loud may be willing to talk or read to a puppet,” he adds.

Vetri VM of Theatre Akku, who is collaborating with Sanoj for this upcoming workshop, opines that puppet-play would help in the emotional development of a kid. “These days, children are spending more time on smartphones and other gadgets than playing outdoors. We wanted to do something that could bring back creativity, childishness, and playfulness of children. Once a famous theatre personality told me, ‘One should learn acting from puppets because each and every moment is unique’. I discussed the concept with Sanoj and he, in turn, suggested the idea of teaching children to make puppets out of recyclable waste. Moreover, it’s important to educate children about the ways in which we could reuse waste. And learning to make puppets would be one of the creative ways in which we could do that,” says Vetri.