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Ash has asked me to put a post up, as he can’t connect to the internet just at the moment.

I spoke to him in India yesterday for quite a while, or rather he spoke to me. He was so excited about all the great stuff that was going on that
he had an awful lot to say!

As I touched upon in my previous post, the teachers are really starting to shine. Ash described to me what we used to dream of creating in a school, a school where the children and teachers work together as equals, where everyone finds their work fulfilling and finds it its own source of motivation, where people get together and have useful, sensible discussions about what is going on at the school, which parts need attention and how they can make it better. A place where people are always looking for ways to further improve what is happening there, a place they feel proud of, can feel proud of themselves and feel like when they are working harder for the school, they are actually working harder for themselves. It seems that we are now a long, long way down the road to Hunar Ghar being like that, and we’re really very very happy about that indeed!

Ash and I set out 4 years ago to design a charity that is always redesigning itself, which can act as a space for all people concerned to
develop their greater potential and in doing so create space for people around them to do the same. Running the charity itself is one way it has allowed Ash and I to use more of our potentials, we can definitely see it in the children and the teachers too, but now the teachers are really seeing that increase in their potential too, and are working to expand upon that which is tremendous.

Hunar Ghar is not in a special village and it doesn’t have special people (ok, they are special to us, but you know what I mean ). Everyone involved are just regular people. These are the people that are described as primitive and backward, they are the poor and destitute masses, the poverty stricken third-world that apparently has no hope in life unless helped by the developed people. Yes, we have helped them, but we haven’t done it all for them as aid and development charities typically do. We’ve created a space for them to do things in and trusted in them as decent responsible people who know better what they need for themselves than we as outsiders do. We’ve helped them try again when it has gotten hard, and supported them through the process as people that we care about and that matter. Now that process is underway it will become more and more self-fulfilling and the importance of us will be come less and less, which is the key to sustainability. All the times when it’s looked too difficult and too dire, and we maybe slipped into doubting ourselves momentarily, are now long in the distance as the people of Hunar Ghar have show to us what they are capable of.

And this is what everyone is capable of and it is what schools normally deny them through forcing them to become dependent on teachers, and teaching all the wrong work ethic values, teaching and development that is focused around the ends and completely neglecting the means. It’s what development agencies take away from people by managing everything for them, making all the decisions and controlling everything. Schools and charities typically take space away from people by dictating to them how to behave and what to learn, but supported space is exactly what people need to find their own boundaries and find their own sense of responsibility. Just as it has been incredibly important for the development of Hunar Ghar that Ash and I have been away from there for long periods, as well as there, so in schools, and work, and society people need the opportunity to learn-self control, self-ability in a forgiving environment.

The rain came again today, monsoon on full flow. For every extra day of rain the hope increases that this year will be a Good Year. So far the rain has been well below par and there are deep concerns for food security and prices later in the year. When wars are fought over water we won’t be so quick to grumble about a drizzly day in the UK. (Or maybe not?!) The problem isn’t about there not being enough food, there will certainly be that, but it will be exported to those willing to pay more for it. The poor will, one again, be the ones to suffer from this mal-distribution. Many farmers and their families have a good chance of starving to death, or will they commit suicide in one final desperate act of trying to determine some element of control over their lives.

This will happen because of the worship of a system that is entirely oblivious to any kind of value or worth or entitlement except that of the dollar. It is a system we are all active contributors to, it is hard not to be, but the degree to which we contribute and try and reassess and re-judge is determined by ourselves.

It is incredulous that we – the self-crowned developed, liberal, democratic, educated – cannot more clearly see, are not more devastatingly outraged at such an incredulously narrow-minded and unbalanced value system which has as its sole currency of exchange the very token that those who possess more gained through processes of exploitation, direct or indirect, of those with less. There is deep concern about the increasing divide between the rich and the poor and there are scores of people working to address it. But the fact of the matter remains that unless and until our value scheme is developed beyond convolutions of an 18th century science, to be more than just a sophisticated, socially acceptable and governmentally ratified feudal system, this polarisation cannot fail to occur.

It is with such ideas in mind that Educate for Life was formed. Our raison d’etre goes far beyond just providing a good learning environment. We understand education to be pivotal in contributing to the dogmatisation or evolution of concepts and as having a far greater scope than the acquistion of knowledge or skill gains in carpentry or literature. As major influencers on children’s lives, and hence the systems and values of the future community (which you may consider on any scale, from home to Bakhel to global), we have a deep responsiblity to understand What Is and work appropriately to replace entrenched assumptions and contribute to the genration of positive, rational systems and values.