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A: I don’t know, but my observations from the last couple of days have made me think about it:

Today’s crowd at Hunar Ghar

Today was Republic Day, and what a splendid day! After all the teachers’ planning I feel like we had an excellent event. Lots of people came, the children put on some excellent performances, and afterwards all the people who had come went to visit our library and the classrooms. Ok, we bribed them in with tea and mithai, but still Gopal and Rajkumar managed to catch about 30 people and give a presentation about our teaching methods and what the children had learned, and Neha managed to do to the same with some women, except about women’s issues.

Rajkumar talking to parents and community members about what it is to learn at Hunar Ghar

Entirely unexpectedly one of our first teachers, Nanadlalji, took to the microphone and gave a fantastic and passionate speech about Hunar Ghar. Seeing him do this speaks volumes for the internal changes that have come about in our staff, and that are the bedrock of Hunar Ghar: they haven’t only learnt to be better teachers, they have also discovered something in themselves and in their relationship and opportunity at the school that excites them, and this motivates them in ways that pay, praise and punishment do not.

Another example: Yesterday I overheard some other teachers talking, Ajit S, Ajit B and Shantilal, as they were making invitations for the local dignitaries for today’s events. They were discussing what address to put. When Ajit S asked what to put, without a second thought Shantilal immediately said “Hunar Ghar, Bakhel”. What’s so significantly about that? A couple of years ago or even last year he might answered “Bal vidya mandir, Andat”; the first three words meaning ‘Children’s learning temple’ which is a typical name for every school in the area, and ‘Andat’ being the name of the hamlet of our school, while ‘Bakhel’ is the village. The change in describing the school and it’s location shows a change in thought. They too can now see their school as different from the other schools, and so call it differently. And by giving the name of the village instead of the hamlet it suggests that some of the petty-minded territorialise that used to be present is perhaps no longer there, or at least much weaker.

Some of our girls and boys dressed up ready for their performances

Nandlalji told us about both these aspects in his speech. He focussed on the two words in our name ‘Hunar’ – meaning skill – and ‘Ghar’ – which means home. He described how once there weren’t skills here and it wasn’t a home, but it as come to have and become both, and that everyone in the village should know the school by it’s proper name – Hunar Ghar. He then went on to say what the village is, naming Andat, Ratnat, Kharivali, Dholimagri and Degri – all the 5 hamlets of Bakhel.

All this is interesting to me because I want our teachers to care about our school in a deeper way, and it appears they are starting to do that. Why is this interesting to the casual reader? Because in deeply rural areas such as this normally just getting a teacher to stay in a school is a challenge. We have a staff of 14 who are there every day, learning every day, and developing their own school. In this lower-class community whom are often thought by the outside in very negative ways they are creating a special relationship that so many upper and middle-class learners in India lack. For me, this signifies a change in thought about how development can be carried out, because it suggests that communities can be perfectly capable of defining their own growth without, they just need the support, belief and patience to discover it for themselves. Everything else that is going on at Hunar Ghar at the moment – tree and seed distribution, drinking water bleaching, women’s health meetings, educational and health research, learning from the environment, Scheffler solar cooking, solar electricity, compost toilets and all that before we even get to the pretty decent classroom environment – only goes to support this.

This writing says ‘Hunar Ghar, Bakhel’ 

Tomorrow is Republic Day, here are some sweets being made at Hunar Ghar in preparation of the 300+ people we are expecting for the event.

Yesterday Deepak, Neha and I had a bit of a brilliant day. In the morning we went up to see Stephen, an old friend who works at the Global Hospital in Mount Abu. Global Hospital is run by the Brahma Kumaris, and is a very high quality charity orientated hospital. He’d set up a meeting between us and Dr. Pratap, who is responsible for the hospital’s activities in the surrounding communities. Neha and Deepak had met with him before, and Neha had written a fab proposal for him about a partnership between the hospital, Educate for Life, and the Bakhel community, and we’d gone to discuss next steps.

The long and short of it is that the three stake holders will be forming a partnership. The Global Hospital, in collaboration with RNT hospital in Udaipur which specialises in community health, will be pre-testing, intervening and post-testing consistently and iteratively on 5 health issues: diarrhea, immunisation, malnutrition, respiratory diseases and anaemia. They will also provide basic health training to all our teachers to help them act people who can flag up people in the community who potentially need support in these areas. I also intend to talk to the local government health workers and have them receive this training too, so we can help them have more ongoing training and support and perform their work to a higher quality, as well as build them into our team and connection with the hospitals.

In the afternoon we went to see Heike and Wolfgang of Solare Brucke. Wolfgang developed the Sheffler reflector (his surname is Scheffler) , an efficient parabolic reflectic disc and sun tracking system used for capturing solar heat energy. We’ve been wanting to have a solar cooker at Hunar Ghar for years, since it’s beginning 5 years ago, but they are hard to comeby and organise for a cooking capacity of 150 students. But if you want to be able to cook for a lot of people, Wolfgang and Heike are your people; we met them in Abu Road on one of their current projects – construction of a 1Mega Watt solar power plant which will provide all energy needs for a community of around 15,000 people. They have already installed a solar kitchen that cooks for up to 30,000 people a day.

Hunar Ghar is small fry in comparison, but it’s the beginning of a larger network of developmental initiatives and intentions.  We discussed our need and we’ve invited them to Hunar Ghar tomorrow to come and check out our setup and how to go about installing the dishes.

Deepak reflected in a small solar cooker.

Fixtures ready for the solar dishes to be attached

Deepak in front of a Sheffler reflector

Yesterday Deepak and I met with RBKS to discuss pending work and future plans. It’s been 5 years that we’ve been working together now, and it was enjoyable for me to reflect a little on how things have changed over that time. We agreed on several new systems of work, including the creation of a Hunar Ghar operations manual which will be a master reference for both RBKS and Educate for Life in the running of Hunar Ghar; this will greatly improve the efficiency of our work and provide a clear channel for communicating responsibilities to each other.

We also discussed the continued capacity building of our teachers and using Hunar Ghar as a means of communicating quality education ideas back up the heirarchy and into government schemes: Typically we have to do follow the government requirements for running a school, at the risk of not being classified as a school if we don’t do this. But it is abundantly clear to everyone who see’s it that Hunar Ghar is the highest quality school in the area, and we achieve a teacher and student attendance and education level far higher than government schools. We are keen to share what we have learned in how to do this with other educators to help develop other non-Hunar Ghar schools.

Other points covered included the appointment of two new qualified teachers (to satisfy government requirements) and the appointment of a school coordinator to free Deepak up to expand his work into community and environmental development initiatives beyond Hunar Ghar. We also talked about the potential of expanding Hunar Ghar beyond 5th standard, and the utilisation of our expertise and best practice and dedicated, reliable team at Hunar Ghar to support other small primary schools (balwadis) in the area which consistently collapse or stop after 3 years.

All in all it was a effective meeting with good positive steps put in place for creating a better, stronger Hunar Ghar and improving the working relationship and depth and scope of work done by Educate for Life and RBKS as we move into our next 5 years of Hunar Ghar.

But that was yesterday (and just today I looking in the usual place, there was the case, but the horn itself was missing), today Deepak and I met with Devinder from Kautilya Vikas Sansthan (Kautilya Development Society) whom Deepak has know for a couple of years. Devinder has visited Hunar Ghar a couple of times but this is the first opportunity to meet him. He and KVS also work towards education and communities, as well as a number of other areas. It was a good experience meeting him and learning about their organisation, and discussing how Educate for Life and KVS can practically share their understanding and skills to create better education in each organisation. We agree that our teachers will go for an exposure at their school, and theirs come to us, as a way of cross-seeding our work and creating an initial working relationship with each other. Again, a good, positive meeting with genuine outcomes decided and to be acted upon in the near future. Good stuff.

Good learning for Ed research on 1 Attitude of education learning 2 value of school 3 Girls and boys value.

January month Ed came with his research. It is very interesting for me.

Some reason so it is interesting for me.

What changes came by the Hunar Ghar:

I visited 2 hamlets, first I visited Andat hamlet and secondly I visited Degri hamlet.
In Degri it seems people want to study but they do not have enough money. People think that if their children will study, then they can find jobs. In Degri hamlet lots of people go for labour work. It is not enough money but this type of situation I did not see in Andat hamlet. I think the main reason is that Andat people find employment at Hunar Ghar. People have no need to migrate for labour.

People living in Andat have also no fear for their children’s education. Their children are coming to Hunar Ghar and studying. I think that Andat, Ratnat and Dholimagri people feel less tense about their children’s education. I think Hunar Ghar provides both the important facilities to a village person; children are finding education and adults are finding employment. I also think Hunar Ghar gives very good health. Hunar Ghar children are finding very good and nutritious food. I thank Hunar Ghar for doing all these things for community people and children.

I also noted some poor families live in Degri Hamlet. These families have a great need of employment. If we do some work with poor Degri families, it is best work and benefit will go more to the poorest families. By finding and targeting help to poorest families, our work will be more sustainable and it will be good for Hunar Ghar to make it fantastic.

Learning management :- In 1-2 interviews it was hard for me to understand what Ed wanted to explain to me. Ed told me he is doing research, we will go to some houses and take interviews, the interviewed person will speak about various things in his interview; please translate the same into English. In 1-2 interviews, people were speaking full sentences but I was speaking only the answer. Then I realised what Ed wanted from me. After 2 interviews I started translating full sentences. It was a good learning opportunity for me to understand how Ed and I think. I was making one problem. Interviewed person speaking and stop some time, then I was translating but interviewed person wanted to speak further, before he spoke I was translating so the answer was not coming fully. Ed and I decided that Ed would not look at me until the person had finished speaking and he wanted me to translate. It was all good for my understanding and learning further to read people’s emotions.

I think I learnt about management part and good relationship part.

Good learning for Ed research on 1 Attitude of education learning 2 value of school 3 Girls and boys value.

January month Ed came with his research. It is very interesting for me.

Some reason so it is interesting for me.

What changes came by the Hunar Ghar:

I visited 2 hamlets, first I visited Andat hamlet and secondly I visited Degri hamlet.
In Degri it seems people want to study but they do not have enough money. People think that if their children will study, then they can find jobs. In Degri hamlet lots of people go for labour work. It is not enough money but this type of situation I did not see in Andat hamlet. I think the main reason is that Andat people find employment at Hunar Ghar. People have no need to migrate for labour.

People living in Andat have also no fear for their children’s education. Their children are coming to Hunar Ghar and studying. I think that Andat, Ratnat and Dholimagri people feel less tense about their children’s education. I think Hunar Ghar provides both the important facilities to a village person; children are finding education and adults are finding employment. I also think Hunar Ghar gives very good health. Hunar Ghar children are finding very good and nutritious food. I thank Hunar Ghar for doing all these things for community people and children.

I also noted some poor families live in Degri Hamlet. These families have a great need of employment. If we do some work with poor Degri families, it is best work and benefit will go more to the poorest families. By finding and targeting help to poorest families, our work will be more sustainable and it will be good for Hunar Ghar to make it fantastic.

Learning management :- In 1-2 interviews it was hard for me to understand what Ed wanted to explain to me. Ed told me he is doing research, we will go to some houses and take interviews, the interviewed person will speak about various things in his interview; please translate the same into English. In 1-2 interviews, people were speaking full sentences but I was speaking only the answer. Then I realised what Ed wanted from me. After 2 interviews I started translating full sentences. It was a good learning opportunity for me to understand how Ed and I think. I was making one problem. Interviewed person speaking and stop some time, then I was translating but interviewed person wanted to speak further, before he spoke I was translating so the answer was not coming fully. Ed and I decided that Ed would not look at me until the person had finished speaking and he wanted me to translate. It was all good for my understanding and learning further to read people’s emotions.

I think I learnt about management part and good relationship part.