Over the years and through our interactions with birders and educators, we realise there is an increasing number of children who have begun birdwatching and are eager to learn. There is also a significant diversity of eco clubs, schools and other such groups teaching about nature and birds, who want to move beyond just ‘identification’. We intend to nudge them toward the right opportunities, tools and mentorship to help them delve deeper into the world of birds.
To achieve this, we envision a pan-India Young Birders’ Network as a hub for children to interact with one another, be guided by educators and naturalists, and connect with other birders too. It will be a platform to access resources, latest bird-related events, interact with experts, share experiences with their peers and more. We will create more freely accessible content and innovative learning tools such as games, workshops, webinars and activities to learn about birds in new and exciting ways. As the first step in this direction, we conducted a 5 week workshop for 11-16 year olds in May-June of 2021 which explored a variety of themes related to birds and nature. You can read more about the event here.
We plan to scale up this effort by building collaborations with educators from all over India, so they can adapt our resources in their own language, to suit their local context and in this way, we will reach a wider audience and truly nurture the Young Birders’ Network. We hope that the Young Birders’ Network will emerge as the go-to platform for young birders across the country to enrich and grow their birdwatching journeys.
