Kalakar Qasbah (artists’ collective) is a Research Project conducted at Dolphin International School by artists BOAT and Katkatha Puppetry in collaboration with University of West England, Bristol and Arts an Humanities Research Council.

The research aims at realising and sharing the effectiveness of the arts to support Dolphin’s vision of wellness for its students. The efforts are towards understanding how an intensive creative arts programme embedded in the system of education in a private secondary school in Pulwama can build identities and communities and thus contribute to social inclusion and constructive resilience.

The structure of the research focussed on six specific areas of study to:

• Investigate how children understand and articulate their individual and collective social place through arts based engagement
• Build frameworks for teachers to work with and build children’s aesthetic, social and personal skills to negotiate with emotions and engage in conversations about change
• Explore the processes used by artists to assist children in exploring, constructing and representing their inner worlds, in order to find its ways in the macro system
• Investigate how parents respond to arts programmes and how that influences students’ performance and sense of self
• Develop ways in which the holistic learning outcomes of the arts project might be documented and evaluated
• Develop ways to induct parents into their children’s inner journeys and equip them with tools to build wider perspectives
• Reimagining the purpose and implementation of arts programmes in a school system