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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.

The assembly of Hunar Ghar concept has involved a lot of looking outward for inspiration and in order to learn from the successes and failures of others, but the last few days have offered the opportunity to go back to Bakhel and get back to what it’s really all about- working with the villagers and the children and I’ve got to say it feels great!

On Friday the children of 2nd class went off into the village to collect the leaves of different trees that grow in the area and then told me all about how each tree is used, be it for firewood, building a home, fruit, feeding animals, medicine, flower decoration, shade etc…..I’m not sure who enjoyed themselves more, me or them!

On Saturday we had our first training day regarding the new concept of Hunar Ghar and our learning initiators already seem to have grasped the basics of the concept and the potential benefits it offers. They even came up with a set of projects around health as the first projects to be undertaken by the children- there will be 4 groups who will explore and learn about different aspects of health, undertake practical activities and then have a fair at the end to show the villagers about the things they’ve learnt and done. The 4 group’s projects still need a lot of thinking about but roughly:

Group 1- Clean water for health- this group will go to 2 or 3 homes and wells and work to create a model environment for demonstrating principles and techniques for keeping water clean and drinkable.

Group 2- Local medicine- these children will look into simple home based activities that can be performed when someone is ill before taking them to the doctor. They will also look into and grow a herbal medicine garden based around local knowledge and plants.

Groups 3 and 4 will be around animal and crop health respectively and again may involve practical demonstrations of techniques in model homes, or the creation of a play to express what they’ve learnt etc….

It’s all very exciting and I can’t wait to get going with the projects and see the potential of the community unfold!

After all the exciting goings on while Ed was out here, the past few weeks have been a time to step back and really look at our vision, what it is we’re hoping to do with this project and how we can translate theory into reality.

From this period of contemplation is born Hunar Ghar- the home of deep knowledge and skill- roughly.

The idea is simple, small groups of mixed age group children who gather with a facilitator and engage in projects set around village life and resources. Half their time is spent on ongoing projects such as community gardening and helping with solar cooking, while the other half is spent on short term projects- creating a local play, making their own books etc…

Through these projects they discover their own unique talents, while also learning about the world around them, providing service to their community and also picking up language and numeracy skills.

Over time it’s hoped that more and more of the community get involved in these projects- not just children, creating a village learning environment, in which everyone is happy to share knowledge and celebrate the skills that they have.

The plan for how we plan on how this can be done is still in its early stages and inevitably a lot will have to do with adjusting to reality on the ground, but a rough idea of the concept and how we plan on making it happen can be found in the document attached.

Happy reading, and as always, ideas and suggestions would be much appreciated!

This school sets the benchmark. We visited it yesterday in Ahmedabad while in search of inspiration and to get an idea of the kind of quality of education that it’s possible to provide in India.

What we found was indeed inspiring; children in classes of less than 20, led by initiators (the school’s teachers), who lead the children through 6month projects of anything from film making to water harvesting. These projects are led by the children’s interests, not by a curriculum- if a class is particularly musical, one of the projects may be to create a band, but within a project lasting half a year the initiators use their imagination, as well as that of the children, to draw out as many varied learning experiences as possible- the physics of sound, history and culture as reflected in music, design technology, linguistics of musical lyrics etc. There is no rigid curriculum, no fixed timetable and limited formal examination, yet the children end up learning all the useful skills taught in more conventional education, but without having to be dragged kicking and screaming through it; without the need to stifle each child’s individuality by moulding them into a set of hard and fast systems training them to jump hoops and pass exams.

In essence the pedagogy understands the immense complexity and diversity of knowledge and learning that can be found in almost anything, and realises that with resources and great initiators children can learn a great deal from a perspective that interests them. For example a 6 month dress making project can cover measuring, understanding areas of cloth, the technology that goes into fabrics, chemistry of dyes, fashion and culture from a historical perspective, aesthetics and design, how natural fabrics are grown and processed, an understanding of our own bodies and body shape, obesity, annorexia etc….

One  of the greatest testaments to the success of their education is the problem they have when children are ill- they just won’t stay at home! Seeing the school was at once a sobering and inspiring experience, confirming that the education we dream of is possible in India, but also reminding us of what a long way we have to go in order to provide it. It’s taken them 10years to create such a fantastic school, with fexcellent teachers, nigh on unlimited resources and in the midst of a city, with fewer problems of poverty and ignorance. We want to do the same, only in a place with no electricity or running water and no teachers in place with the potential to provide such an education. But for all this, we have an entire village as our playground- we don’t need to buy so many things into a fenced off city school to provide the experiential education- most of the things needed are already there in the environment that surrounds us. This is why if we can find the right people I believe we can provide an education that is more relevant and inspiring than that even provided at MG International School.