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This blog post is a joint effort of Ed and Rosie, our intern as of next march. Rosie has been with us for the last week, checking out what we do, how we do it, why we do it, in what context we think we are doing it, the same for the village, and to try and figure out where Rosie fits into all of this.

I think a really important thing here is the re-phrasing of Rosie being an ‘intern’, not a volunteer. It completely changes the context of her being there to give and impart and ‘do’ and changes it to one of her being there to learn.

We figured that the experience would be much better for all if Rosie doesn’t have a specific role as such. Roles create targets and expectations which puts pressure on the self and the community which is needless. Both or previous volunteers, and we did call them volunteers, suffered from this difficultly, so we’re really glad to be able to change the perception. The value of this change in perspective is much greater than first meets the eye. Most/all volunteers think they are there to help and make some kind of change to the community, but in reality it is the ‘volunteer’ that needs the help of the community to change, change to be less stressed, to apply less pressure on people and not be going around with a misguided sense of being right in their opinions and ways of being while the community are therefore wrong. Sounds harsh, but it’s a pretty accurate description of your average volunteer. Volunteers look for problems that can be solved (we need a new classroom, let’s build it!; these kids can’t speak English, let’s teach them!), an intern with Educate for Life looks at what value there is in a community, and explores its deep richness and learns from it, and so in turn explores themselves to try and get to the bottom of which community really is ‘suffering’ the most.

A trip with Rosie to a local government school was telling. The exam timetable had Hindi, Maths and English, nothing else. It is fair to say that they are three very useful skills, but they are utter useless in the village. The only way a child who attends a gov school can use those skills is to migrate to the city, therefore leaving their family, community and heritage and the peace and values that still exist in the village. Add to that that countries need farmers for food, and farmers are on the decrease, in a country that at present is failing to feed itself, and the idea that cities like Bombay have slums of million upon million people, and you can see that the education is giving most children nothing but a passport to misery and a world where money is supreme, values of decency an historical oddity.

We looked at Hunar Ghar in several contexts; development aid, educational development, the global context, local politics, as an experiment in community development, in relation to our school culture, indian school culture and related to their personal self. Each of these angles threw up new questions and ideas as to the negative and positive effects of Hunar Ghar. I think Rosie being with me for a week was as much of a learning experience for me as it was for her, as I was able to talk through complex ideas with an intelligent fluent English speaker while being in the context of being at Hunar Ghar, an opportunity I am very rarely afforded!

We’ve identified things that need changing, but more importantly we have learned that those things that need changing need changing in a certain way, and we are figuring out those ways of cahnging that are most natural in the community; not us telling them they are wrong and we are right, but finding points of value that are shared by us and the community so they tehn put the pieces together and generate their own change. I am taking on the role as a guide to Hunar Ghar, being less of a purist and letting the smaller problems go in exchange for finding pathways and creating experiences that teach people without them knowing they are being taught, such that they find within themselves the confidence and capacity to take on roles and commintments that they previously thought beyond them. Yesterday morning was an example of that. Buriya took the intiative to close Hunar Ghar and take 60 children down to his farm to teach them in organic farming. The school may well be ‘closed’ for the next couple of weeks as he teaches them everything he learned at the organic farm, even the idea of a school beig necessary for learning is being dissolved in the community. Older members of the community are starting to take an interest too, and they in turn will share their knowledge, which is more valueble and relevent in the community that anything that can be taught in 10 years at a government school. Today we are one step closer to a community led school.

Other great things see this week is Buriya’s family providing the vegetables for lunch one day. OK, it was only one day and it was Buriya’s family (the family that always benefits the most from Hunar Ghar) that did it, but it again is a step towards the community running and providing for the school, such as what is community and what is school blurs, ‘and the animals looked from school to community and community to school, and couldn’t tell which was which any more’. (But hopefully they won’t be facist!)

I’ve only spent a couple of days at Hunar Ghar this week, but it has
been pretty great. When I arrived back from being away for a couple of
weeks on Friday, only three kids where there and I felt a little
despondent. But after some time, about 50 more kids arrived, so I had
little to worry about. The teachers’ sometimes lack of willingness to do
things actually works in our favour I’ve found; combined with the the
sense of autonomy Ash, Deepak and I have been developing in the
children, it means they can get on with organising themselves. So in
the morning, with a little chastising from the teachers, they sit down
together and a few kids lead first some yoga, then some songs and
prayers before they break to play some games. Even in apparently bad
situations (such as non-attentive teachers) we find that there are
some really positive outcomes.

In fact, I’m feeling pretty positive about the whole thing right now.
I feel there is a solid core of children developing that come the
whole time. From this base interest we can then concentrate more on
what we want to offer rather than reacting to the market forces of the
village (such as formal education). ‘When the student is ready, the
teacher appears’, and for us now we have a core of children that
understand what we are doing and want to be a part of it, we can work
with them and worry less about bumping numbers up to keep people happy.
At this point I’ve realised that really we’ve probably been putting
too much time and effort into the teachers, they are slow to pick up
new ideas. I’m now wondering what if we selected a few of the older
kids and put that same effort into getting them to take control,
organise and help the other children? I’m not thinking we should get
rid of the teachers just yet, but some power could be shifted which
would be a step in the right direction for proper co-decision making
within the Hunar Ghar community.

I see these glimpses of how it can be; some kids were watering the
plants so I decided to start picking up rubbish in the vicinity. It
wasn’t long before I had a cohort of children picking up rubbish too
and one kid going backwards and forwards collecting it in a bag. As we
went they showed me the tomatoes growing and some flowers before we
played a few games and ended up near the library. I picked up a book
and took it outside and a few children sat round and read it to me and
described each of the pictures. That done, they taught me (or rather
tried, I wasn’t very good!) a local song and I taught them Englishman
in New York, or iingleeshmaaninnyooyork as they prefer to sing it.
Like this is, if free and easy and everyone is doing what they enjoy,
but they are doing good things together and are learning all the
while. We even started writing names in Hindi in the sand, so that was
that covered too. If only we could get the teachers to see the value
of working like this, but perhaps it isn’t necessary? The children,
for who it is all designed for anyway, get it really really well.

I was meant to be meditating for 10 days this week, but when I arrived at the centre after an 18 hour trip to get there, they said, on account of my not having brought my passport with me, I couldn’t stay, so I turned around and went home again. I did try and push my case a bit, but bureaucracy in India is un-swayable; the eyes avert, voice drops and meek apologies proffered.

This is the way that indiscriminate violence effects other people. Normally decent people are turned against another by discriminating government policy, and people think that because it is the law it is right and it must be followed. Individual brains are cut out and mass opinion is manipulated. Nuclear weapons, war and disasterous development projects are government aproved in India so they are acceptable, but anything not aproved is a threat to society, like letting me sit in silence for 10 days.

It is perhaps interesting to note that there have been elections going on in India, and the BJP party has a history of inciting hatred against Muslims for their political advantage. Fortunate for them indeed then that such foreign infadels from Pakistan should choose the week before elections to tuck their id cards in their pockets and wander around Mumbai killing people.

Anyhow, my laptop has just packed up, so I may have to travel hundreds of miles to a city where I can get it fixed. With these 10 extra days I’ve been blessed with I can get on with organising myself a bit better,  and preparing for a volunteer who is coming new week. I also want to sketch out our plans for the coming year, to include new ideas such as organic farming and registering Educate for Life as a trust in India.

I’m going to leave the teachers at Hunar Ghar to their own devices for a week; I hope that the lack of me and Deepak with leave a gap in organisation and management that they will grow into a little, I certainly feel like my time at the organic farm was good for Deepak and his skills – I now don’t have to wake him up in the morning!