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Despite the tragic picture I paint, however, it’s remarkable how joyous people seem tobe. It’s the middle of wedding season and this evening I passed at least 20 jeeps piledhigh with singing locals in their best garb off to the latest marriage related festivities,no doubt. Sometimes we criticise the locals for not getting serious enough- not caringenough about the future of their kids, or saving enough money etc, but days like todaymake me appreciate how important the constant celebration is to people who live in whatare often the most hopeless of situations.

Following on from my previous post (Freeing Deepak), we were talking a little today about how difficult it is to attract and retain high quality team members to Hunar Ghar. This is something that is seen all across development- The Matthew Effect; the rich get richer, while the poor get poorer. If, for example, Hunar Ghar was established in London, it would be easy to attract the best minds and hearts to such a ‘noble cause’, if in a largish town in India, like Udaipur, the same task would be difficult but not impossible. We’ve chosen to work in one of the the most isolated parts of India- poor roads, no electricity, water shortages, low latent educational levels etc all contribute to it being a difficult area to work in & herein lie our difficulties with attracting & retaining.

However, over the past year we feel that things may be changing a little. Thanks in a large part to Deepak’s commitment, as well as our own ongoing support, Hunar Ghar has matured into a place where people that believe in our vision are considering coming. We have just been joined by Ina and soon Ruhani will come over also- we’re hoping that this leads to our own little reverse Matthew effect, in an area that really needs it- with people seeing the commitment of Ina & Ruhani, just as they saw it in Deepak and ourselves and deciding it’s not inconceivable (even, in fact, desirable) to work on the ground and at the heart of some of the challenges that face rural education in India.

To paraphrase Abhay Bang, a great man working to tackle India’s horrific challenge of mortality in newborn babies, work should be conducted “where the problems are, not where the facilities are”. I completely agree & that’s what we are trying to do. Time and commitment from those first few team members and crucial to this.

3 weeks ago, we move from Mandwa village to Bikarni village. This is very nice & peaceful village. Both Hindu and Muslim people live there. We can also find Lohar, Brahmin and Rajput castes. It is my great opportunity to make Hindu & Muslim friends. They are both very nice people.

Let’s try to see why our new house is unique :

1 In our house, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu and Jain people live.

2 In our house live people from 4 different countries: Akshay Patel and Ed Forrest, ( UK), Deepak Sahlot and Ina (India), Paritta wangkiat(Thailand) Teddy Pauly (France)

3 In our house, people speaks English, Hindi, French and Thai.

4 In our house, Teddy is an architect, Paritta is a landscape architecte, Deepak and Ina are coordinator, Ed is teacher and Akshay is doctor.

5 In our house live voluntary workers, employees and founders.

6 No limitations in our house : for example, women can come alone.

7 Our house is a good example of equality between genders. We don’t think like community people. We think that everybody should work whatever the sex. There is no specific work for women neither for men.

8 In our house, city & both people from city and village are welcome.

Here is a sample of the responsibilities Deepak has at Hunar Ghar….

1) General manager- making sure staff turn up, work etc.

2) Planning lessons for 8 classes (110 kids) with the teachers.

3) Training teachers on Saturdays & organising external training.

4) Liaising with community and sorting out any issues they raise.

5) Supply teacher

6) Purchaser of firewood to cook with (more difficult than it sounds)

7) Purchaser of food

8 ) Purchaser of teaching materials for kids

9) The face of Educate for Life in India- networking with some of our friends in the country.

10) Accountant

11) Volunteer co-ordinator

12) Building work supervisor

13) Payment officer

I think a few things are apparent from this list (which, I should point out doesn’t include his responsibilities toward himself, his family or friends)…

1) He has more work than is humanly possible to do well.

2) He works ridiculously hard and needs support.

3) He’s good at taking on responsibilities but not delegating them.

4) Related to the above, perhaps the rest of the staff aren’t taking enough ownership of the project.

We’ve been trying incredibly hard to find people to support Deepak over the past few years, but up till now haven’t had much sustainable success. Over the coming weeks we’ll be working with two staff members who are already familiar to the area and our work- Preeti & Gopal.

Preeti is one of the teachers who we see a lot of potential in. She’s just had a baby, so it seems like a good opportunity to shift her role a little on her return. As she’s very organised and quite reliable we feel she could be in charge of account keeping, making sure all the rooms & kitchen are tidy and fully stocked, as well as helping with the teaching.

Gopal has been a staff member of RBKS for many years in the area, but due to a restructuring of some of RBKS’s projects is now available to shift over to us. We know that he’s capable and hard working, and Deepak already has a strong relationship and friendship with him as they worked together before Deepak joined Educate for Life- so hopefully the move will be positive. We’re hoping that he’s another who can take on a significant proportion of what Deepak does- purchasing food, wood, classroom materials etc. Going on home visits, helping support Deepak in managing the teachers, overseeing building work etc…

This means that hopefully Deepak, along with Ina and Ruhani who are joining over the coming weeks, will be freed up to focus their attention on the educational side of things- this is what Deepak’s good at and enjoys & it’s about time he gets to focus more fully on that.

In the next few days there are going to be a lot of different people descending on Hunar Ghar. As well as Deepak and the team, Teddy and Paritha are already there doing a fab job improving the classrooms, building new ones and getting rainwater harvesting systems working. Ed, Ina & I (train reservations allowing) will be there on Saturday and Ruhani, a new member of the team, will join us a few days later.

All this means there’s the potential to begin thinking about some big changes at Hunar Ghar. Until now, Deepak’s been struggling just to keep his head above water, having to almost single handedly manage everything at the school; hopefully with a little more support everyone will have more freedom to innovate & get even more creative in the way they work with the children.

Of course, with so many people, there’s also the potential for things to be disorganised and slightly chaotic for a while, but hopefully that will be something we can manage & move with.