2025
The Rainbow Tent
The Rainbow Tent
Researching The Rainbow Tent. Images courtesy Slumabad School.
The Rainbow Tent project streamed from the Slumabad Project with which I volunteered for five months in 2019. The Rainbow Tent picture book evolved as a collaborative effort between the Pakhiwas community of Kacha Kahna, Lahore, students of Slumabad Mobile School Education Facility for Pakhiwas children, and myself.
The Rainbow Tent centres on the life of two little girls, Kushi and Komal and that of their community who are descended from Pakhiwas - nomadic peoples who roamed interior Punjab and Sindh prior to Partition of India and Pakistan. As a text designed for primary age children, it has the rights of Indigenous Peoples and the right to belonging as its underlying themes.