Bridging Classrooms, Building Futures
The Highland Institute’s Schools Twinning Projects connect school communities across Northeast India with partner institutions around the world. Designed to foster intercultural exchange and local-global dialogue, these partnerships open up imaginative and critical spaces where students can explore shared concerns — from biodiversity and oral histories to storytelling and environmental resilience.
Through the Twinning initiative, we collaborate with schools in villages and towns across Nagaland, offering interactive workshops, film screenings, exhibitions, and storytelling sessions. Past highlights include the Look Up exhibition, which explored themes of astronomy and cosmology through art and science, and Ancestral Voices, a community-curated exhibit on oral heritage and intergenerational memory. These hands-on engagements provide students with access to forms of knowledge they might not otherwise encounter in standard classroom curricula.
The initiative also leverages our strong networks of researchers, artists, and cultural workers. Staff, Highland Fellows, and international visiting scholars regularly lead sessions in both onsite and virtual formats — including collaborative classroom projects, reading groups, and themed dialogues that allow students to think beyond borders while remaining rooted in their local worlds.
In 2018, the Highland Institute hosted Bookaroo, India’s pioneering children’s literature festival, in collaboration with the Government of Nagaland. This landmark event brought together celebrated authors, illustrators, poets, and storytellers from across the country, engaging over 40 schools and hundreds of children across three vibrant days. The programme included author visits to schools, interactive storytelling, and workshops designed to spark imagination and celebrate the magic of books.
The Twinning programme continues this spirit of creativity and exchange. We welcome interest from educators, schools, and cultural organisations keen to develop partnerships with schools in the highlands of Northeast India. Whether it’s a thematic collaboration around indigenous storytelling, a joint art project, or a live classroom exchange, the Institute can facilitate and support meaningful engagement.
Interested in collaborating?
If you’re a teacher, school administrator, or organisation interested in joining our Twinning Projects, please contact us at:
info@highlandinstitute.org
The Highland Institute, Meluri Road, Kohima, Nagaland, India