Founders’ words

We are Kundo Yumnam and Korou Khundrakpam, the couple founders behind Yakai Nature School. Both of us studied creative arts; Kundo at NIFT, Delhi and Lassale College of the Arts, Singapore; and Korou at the College of Art, Delhi. With a passion for authentic practices in the arts, food, health, and education; we started many initiatives in Manipur. Yakai Nature School is an important one among them. Yakai started as “Learning at Matai” in the year 2019. We opened our farmhouse at Matai village to children and started offering genuine learning experiences; facilitated by ourselves and friends who are keen practitioners of art, dance, yoga, etc.

The journey actually started further back with the birth of our first child. Many questions arose then – how would we best care for and nurture this sacred gift that we had received. Since education is an important part of bringing up children, we started deliberating with like-minded friends about what kind of education we wanted for our children. We wanted something more holistic than what our conventional schools were offering. After years of studying different approaches, trying them out, and talking to alternative schools across India, our family finally decided on the Waldorf approach for our children. We found resonance in Rudolf Steiner’s developmental understanding of children and his idea of educating the whole child – head, heart, and hands.

During the Covid lockdowns, we home-schooled our first child following the Waldorf curriculum and method. We were overwhelmed by the way he beautifully responded to the Waldorf method. We could witness how children can learn in sync with nature, at ease, and with the feeling of connectedness to the greater world. And we saw how it can be beneficial to the child and the whole community.

We started working on how to bring Waldorf to more children and families who see value in this philosophy. We set out to gain more in-depth knowledge of the approach by studying Steiner’s works, talking to faculty of other Waldorf schools, and seeking certified training programs as well. Korou got certified with Sadhna Indian Waldorf Kindergarten Institute’s Waldorf Early Childhood Teacher Training held in Pune and Gurgaon in 2022-23. The clarity and depth of the course content, the facilitators’ eagerness to address any query, and the wonderful peer group were immensely helpful. We are grateful to SIWKA for the training and continued guidance. Kundo also attended Nurturing the Young Child with Love and Guidance in the First Seven Years: an enriching perspective and best practices for early childhood educators and caregivers, a foundation course facilitated by Nancy Blanning and organised by Banyan Earth School, Noida.

We opened our Kindergarten class in April 2023. We started off with a handful of families who found resonance with our approach of educating the whole child. The number steadily grew and the laughter of children in our grounds became louder and louder! The two students in our cottage-school Class 2 also had a very exciting, meaningful, and fruitful journey learning about increasingly complex ways of working with numbers, types of words, the beauty of languages, the play of colours, and the creative potential of their own two hands. The first year came with many observations which reaffirmed our commitment to the Waldorf method – seeing children become more able, more creative, more expressive, kinder, and most importantly happier. It also presented many challenges like transport service, infectious bad habits, and fence climbers! The biggest challenge was the ongoing armed conflict in Manipur. Apart from the many days the school had to remain shut, it brought upon us the monumental task of trying to undo the damage of living in a time and place filled with violence.

This year, we are further refining our Kindergarten program – with new activities and two different classrooms for two age groups. We are also very excited to launch our Primary section with classes 1 to 3. We have strengthened our team of Kindergarten teachers and built a team of able, enthusiastic teachers for our Primary classes. A new school block was also built to accommodate the lower Primary classes and the Senior Kindergarten class.

Resolute with the learning from this one year with the children, and continued support of the global community of resourceful Waldorf educators and trainers; we welcome new families to join our school and witness their children learn with purpose and joy.

Sincerely,
Jasmina Yumnam (Kundo) and Khundrakpam Satabir (Korou)