Blog

Ash and his friend Tom arrived 7 days ago. They ended up flying from Tehran amid mass demonstrations and violent eyes of the military following them around; Ahmedinejad seems to be implying that everything is Britain’s fault. I don’t think that stopped them meeting some fantastic and fascinating people while couch surfing, or indeed prevent them not bothering to plan much, and so arrived in Iran with no cash, not realising that foreign cards aren’t accepted there. A little begging and a slightly sheepish trip to the British Embassy sorted that out.

We had a fantastic meeting with Sharmaji of RBKS yesterday. Where in the past meetings have been messy and unclear, everything went really smoothly and all differences settled cleanly and professionally. I’m really happy to see in a new age of better communication between our organisations, I’m sure it will make life much easier for both of us.

Ash and I have a busy and exciting two months. We are restructing Hunar Ghar to create space for people to grow into. We’ve learnt a massive amount over the last two years, I think no-one at Hunar Ghar has learnt more than Ash and myself! It’s been a real journey with much flexability and reactive change, pushing our boundaries and those of the people we work with, but we feel now we need to offer a clearer picture of potential progress over time to RBKS, Deepak and the community. We’ve the 2009-10 budget to finalise and a 5 year plan to lay out. It’s not so much that we need to stick to the plan to the letter, but it will give people a clear idea of what they can expect for their children from us, what building work tehy can reasonably expect and when we will be able to accept more children.

We are also putting in place a system of better communication and feedback from the community, and will try and involved them more in the ‘formal’ aspects of their child’s learning, such as doing reading and writing sessions in small groups and different parents’ homes, so they can directly experience the benefit to their children and see that we are giving due commitment to providing the type of learning that they think as most valuable, in addition to that which we consider equally valuable.

Hunar Ghar is now established in physicality and informal thought well enough that Ash and I don’t need to micro-managed every action and exchange. We hope to establish a wider structure to support the impetus and interest that now exists amoung Deepak and the teachers in their own growth and learning pathways. It will also allow us to be more productive from afar, and make more efficient use of our time when we are in India. It’s a pretty big step, so I’m really relishing the challenge; I get really bogged down in the day to day things which stops me being able to get on and make the most out of my time and ability, and having to create something that is greater than my current capacity is good for motivation and really getting my interst going! If it works out, we’ll be in a much better position to add to the system at a later date, taking on more roles and challenges. Of course, all our focus us on Hunar Ghar at the moment and we’re certainly not going to sell out on a great relationship with a great bunch of people in the village to follow foolish plans of growing beyond that which is appropiate; this is fertiliser-free school growth!

I guess now we should get on and update out website, it’s pretty out of date in content and concept, but I’ve just felt too befuddled until now to do anything about it.