THE students of Manta village in Udhampur district have built a bamboo treehouse to solve problems related to online classes. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the move to online classes as schools had to be closed to control the spread of the coronavirus. However, this adversely affected education, especially in rural areas where the students face problems due to patchy internet issues. Students in Manta village also had to deal with poor internet problems and weren’t able to avail the benefits of online classes.

 

Satyashwer Singh, an artist by profession, helped the students overcome the problem by building a bamboo treehouse with them where the internet connection was good. “There are very few places where we receive good internet connection and this (where the bamboo tree was constructed) is one of those. When kids told me about their problem, I came up with an idea to build the bamboo treehouse,” said Singh. He added that the treehouse can also be used during inclement weather. Vicky Singh, a class 12 student, said, “During the lockdown online classes started and we faced many difficulties in connecting to the internet. So, when we told Satyashwer about our problem. Satyashwer said that we should construct a treehouse. There are 10-12 students who come here. We used to sit together and discuss the topic.”