Adharshila Learning Centre

Right now we are excited about.....The Making of the Special Issue of Yuvaniya

2012-01-21T18:50:00.000+05:30

Taking out a magazine from a remote adivasi village.

We didn’t believe it when we got internet connectivity in Sakad which barely has electricity, where hand pumps are going dry now. Sakad has all poverty indicators. But we got internet. We were in a frenzy and mailed everyone we knew about what a great achievement it was.

Three years down the net we are one of the few fortunately co netted people in the country who are able to crib about not getting connectivity. We never cribbed about electricity as the joke about it is that electricity never goes in our village. It comes. Once in a while. Right now only on alternate days. So what if we don’t have electric supply. We have many peons and IAS officers loaded with crores of cash and gold. Swarnim MP they call it.

Let’s forget the crib. This was supposed to be a positive blog post.

Now we are once again very excited about our new first i.e. taking out a forty page magazine dummy sitting right here in this remote adivasi village – Sakad. Actually this was the fifth issue, a special issue for the Adivasi Mahasammelan held at Manpur in the Banswara district of Rajasthan on the 13th-14th Jan. 2012.

Like always we made a grand plan, this time for a special issue, without thinking about what it will take to do it, meaning how much headache it will give us. It was decided to source articles from all the senior adivasi leaders of Maharashtra, Gujarat , Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Then it began. Starting out by contacting these leaders for articles. The Maharashtra people were very excited and promptly agreed to write and also ask others to write. Some said we have never written but will try. We suggested that they just talk like in a mike and ask somone to keep writing. Though there was a deadline but we were reminding people and later begging them to send their articles even two weeks after the deadlines. One or two recharge cards later we were not dissappointed.Guess what - many people said they had written or were writing.

Next thing was how to get those articles to reach us. No there was no time to send them through post. You must remember that most of our leader writers live in very remote villages of remote areas of the country. So we tried every way. One article reached us through the driver of the only private bus that came to our area. We chased the bus and driver for three days to the last station only to discover that the article was with a guy we knew, but he had forgotten about it. This guy is also leader.

We tried to tell some writers to send via email. They too got excited at the prospect of becoming part of the e revolution. They got hold of someone who knew about email etc. We sent our long id. And after the usual speed breakers of file not opening, different hindi fonts etc. we were able to get some articles. Of course some supporter at their end had to trudge two three times to the market centre from the village to do it.

Some people had hand written. So they sent a scanned version. This too after many phone calls, file not opening etc. The best was the fax machine. The fax machine is in a photocopy shop in a town 10 km. away. The fax machine works only when there is electricity. Remember alternate days. The other end is also similar electric situation. So to find a time when there is electricity at both ends. Then the fax machine has to give a fax tone. Then they could send it. Someone went to collect it. But we realized that some pages were lost between sending and reaching. Again go to town.Match timings and send. Collect.

Now editing which mostly meant rewriting. Typing. Laptop discharged. Battery discharged. Editing. The printer said its too late. Cant be done. Never mind. We will do layout. But wait. Computer crashed and of course we had some back up of first drafts. Run to Pune. Data recovered. Page Maker not loaded after recovery. Never mind we will do it on Publisher. Done. Now lets print it. Who knows how to print a booklet. No one. Not at least on this program. Trial. Trial. Electricity gone. Wake up friends in the middle of night. Finally at 4 am we have a printout. The team is leaving for the Mahasammela around 11 am. Now we are just one step away – photocopying and making at least 50 copies. But the shop opens only around 10.30. Phone. Convince. Convince. Finally the photocopy guy reaches shop after his bath, temple routine. 50 copies made. Back to Sakad. Now for the stapling.

What a great pleasure to turn the pages of the special issue of Yuvaniya. It has everything. Cover design, artwork, headings, poems, editorial and looks like a magazine.

The 50 home made copies were sold out. We have orders for 300 more copies and best of all – Yuvaniya was released in the Mahasammelan with other books by a Minister.

And just as we were preparing to sleep over the weekend, our friend from Mumbai called to say that he was ready to come for the sound/song recording...

( I am not editing this long story. Only spell-check.)

The past 6 months

2011-12-29T22:05:00.000+05:30

June – November 2011

     The academic session started with the first hand experience of rubbing shoulders with the regular school system. We were trying to admit our son in the 10th class, who was in Adharshila (an unrecognized learning centre) for the first 9 years. The papers, affidavits and all. We experienced the anguish of the hapless adivasi parents who have to run for the various certificates from panchayats to tehsils for months to get their children admitted. The photocopy shops make a heist. In this month farmers are running in search of two things - seeds and loans for the farm and certificates and hostels for the kids.

     Even though the rains tested every body’s patience the meeting for new admissions was a moral booster. New, excited children and parents. Nice way to forget those who have decided to leave. Even more encouraging this year was the group of people who wanted to open a new centre in Roshmal. Kukna an AMS activists mobilized parents of 3 villages to start a Centre in their village. He listed 35 parents, keen to start the new centre, formed a committee to manage the school and brought them to Adharshila for a one day meeting with us to understand the philosophy and structure of Adhrshila. Ultimately this didn’t work out as they couldn’t find anybody to run the centre. But it resulted in two young boys and girls coming to Adharshila for the teacher training program while studying for the 10th exam from open school. We hope they will be able to run such children’s centres after one or two years – a future plan. The children of Sakad village took lots of vegetable seeds and some tree plants for their homes.

     The 4th issue of Yuvaniya, a magazine for youth came out. We established a good rapport with the workers of Muskaan, an NGO working with Gond children in Bhopal slums who came to help in typing and editing the issue. We are currently working on the 5th issue, a special issue for the Adivasi Ekta Sammelan to be held in Rajasthan in January. We are after the main leaders of the Ekta Parishad to write for the issue. Through Yuvaniya, 4 writing workshops for adivasis were conducted from where most of the material for the magazine was generated.

Kamal

Ex students – one of our oldest stars, Majali did us proud by agreeing to go to Bomliya paat a settlement (not a recognized village) in Burhanpur 200km away, to help the community and Adivasi Ekta Sangathan restart a school which they had started three years ago. Another oldie, Kamal has taken a six month gap after graduation to visit organizations in other tribal areas. He went to Jharkhand and stayed with Arvind Anjum for 3 weeks. In the Adharshila Scholarship program one student of class 12th is being supported.

Children are encouraged to participate in social and political events in the area. The Adharshila children’s song and dance troupe performed at two adivasi sammelans in Maharashtra and MP. Right now also they have gone to Zoida village in Maharashtra. Maybe the Naatak India Company will get to perform in Rajasthan. We are still trying to get sponsors ( hint for SRUTI ). The children performed a play in the school on 15th August, depicting the story of Independence. The senior students participated in two rallies held in Sendhwa and Pansemal. Two teachers also attended programs of an adivasi organization in the Pati block.

Adharshila has been taking up the role of training teachers of community schools. In the first half this year 5 trainings were held. Two in the Kakrana School in Alirajpur district. Two boys from Burhanpur stayed here for a month for teacher training to help in the Burhanpur School. One training cum meeting was organized for adivasi teachers of five schools run by adivasi sangathan/communities. 15 teachers from the 5 schools participated. A great feeling of camraderie was felt amongst the teachers. Some common programs were decided – drawing workshops and folk story documentation. About 50 folk stories were collected in these schools in 3 districts. A Kahani Marathon was conducted at Adharshila where about 60 children, age 8 years – 18years and some villagers narrated stories for about 4 days, two hours everyday. About 15 children made illustrated books out of their stories. Hopefully we will be able to print a collection of some of these stories by the end of this academic year.

     In this vein three student teachers from Adharshila volunteered for a month at a remote school run by Jagrut Adivasi Dalit Sangathan in Barwani District. We too were invited to take a course at TISS, Tuljapur to do an Educations Skills course for the final year BSW students. It was interesting to compare there infrastructure with ours both for 150 children. Jayashree conducted a women’s training for the Satna group voluntarily.

     Lot of work on basic curriculum development was completed. Most of the math curriculum for the primary and some modules for the middle schools were made thanks to Mansi. Work on English and Hindi language primers also went ahead. Jayashree tried her hand at illustrations quite successfully. Two interns from TISS, Mumbai, doing Masters in Elementary Education helped document two social science modules one each in Geography and History.

     Vibhore was with us for 3 months intermittently, under the Adharshila Fellowship Program. While volunteering he was engaged in thinking about the question of bringing social change through education.

This year a poultry was started by the two students who went for training in the summers. So now we have an organic farm, cattle shed and poultry, looked after by the children under the guidance of adults. The poultry has more than 50 birds, starting with 7. the organic farm has given us about 4 quintal veggies uptil now. This year we also have a papaya plot. These activities are important for us as one of the basic premise of this educational program is that we – adults and children - should engage in the activities that are done by the villagers. One group has made a potato plot for themselves. Another group developed a herbal garden which lasted for 4 months.


Students and teachers constructing the hen cage


Our newest residents


Field preparation

Group fertilizer preparation

     Many inhouse workshops were conducted for and by children on Origami, craft, math, story writing etc. Children of one group have become avid bird watchers. There is an origami group. At least 6 children have tried there hand at violin. Two are still persisting. Two parent meetings were conducted where the children presented what they had learnt. And kabaad se jugaad is happening always. First there was the kite fever – kites being made from plastic, then there were the plastic balls, bhingris etc.

     Some friends insist on coming to Adhrshila and they claim that they get a lot of inspiration. One such group is INSPIRE who bring NRI children to see the ‘real’ India. People from two NGOs also visited us. A group of villagers who wanted to start a school also stayed for a day. Some businessmen from Indore visited the ‘Sakad Ashram’ through some other friends. And lastly these days we have the annual visitor the Wagtail from the Himalayas.

     Construction of a kitchen extension shed was done and the mess hall was partitioned to make two rooms.

     We are 100 children and nine adults. A group of 8 senior children help Shevanta, Shanta and Badri bhai manage the show. This year almost all the day scholars have vanished due to the RTE and the stipend being given to children.

End of Term 1

2011-12-29T13:24:00.003+05:30

20 September 2011



The children have gone off. What ever we do we can’t beat the joy of going home. The rain and wind have gone too. Silence is all around us. Even the bright multicoloured cosmos flowers, thin and elegant, cannot fill the silence with all their colours. The birds too seem to have quitened. The first term is over.



      Kamal has finished college and taken a drop of six months on our advise to roam around the country before he applies for MA Economics somewhere, which is before he sits for the IAS. He has long plans. We are looking for suggestions for a good college where the atmosphere is not laden with too much English and neo-liberal economists. He volunteered in a school run by a people’s organization and of course Adharshila where he has been brought up. He is going to spend some time in Bihar with Arvind an old friend and activist of the once famous Vahini group.

   We feel this is a natural extension of our work, to place children in good institutions in the fields of their interests. We have made a list and will try to seek admissions for higher studies for our and other deserving students.


      A small cat has come into our house. God sent. Freedom from rats. But she is all over the place now, only decent looking and loveable.

   We went to conduct a 5 day Education Skills course for the IIIrd year Bachelor of Social Work students at the TISS campus at Tuljapur, Maharashtra. It has about 160 students, 130 staff and 100 acres. The amount of resources pumped into an institution doesn’t necessarily mean quality education. One thing for sure, it means lot of wasteful expenditure and no use of creatively using resources. So the lesson learnt outside classrooms is of a wasteful, extravagant living with others doing all your labour work. How so ever much they may debate on the caste divide or factors of poverty and equality and other big words inside the class room. Routinizing such words is dangerous. It just might prove to be counterproductive. Words lose their edge when overused.

     We have 100 children, 10 staff and 6 acres. Every day we are thinking of improving our farm production or when will we become self sufficient in fuel wood. How can we reduce costs and improve quality with minimum resources. How will we fight these resource rich guys ? This keeps coming up again and again.

The pedagogy of social studies

2011-12-29T13:11:00.003+05:30

Sayonkia and Kuldeep, two master of elementary education students from TISS-Mumbai, each spend 2 weeks with us for their field attachment part of their program. Both of their backgrounds are in the social studies- history and geography, respectively. They stayed and documented projects, taught classes, shared their skills, and got a small taste of Adharshila life.

Sayonika taught ancient civilizations to the elder students, engaged the Krishna-Brahmputra groups in a local and family history project, and documented some of our history modules. She is also a talented artist, and took some drawing classes focused on developing perceptual and observational drawing skills.

Jewelery Artifacts

The 'dancing girl' of Mohenjo Daro

Indus Valley Civilization

Kuldeep engaged with the students over Project Map- which involved students learning about direction, space planning and measuring, map reading, and local, national, and global geography.

Students observing and drawing a
brick-made floor plan map

Using maps and atlases
to understand where we are

A student's rendition of their own house
with accurate measurements and direction.

New Meaning of Faag

2011-12-29T11:00:00.001+05:30

25 March 2011

One
      Faag maangna is a wide spread tradition in North India. To ask for grains is almost a traditional right of dalits in many states. In the western Indian districts of Alirajpur, Jhabua, Dhar, Barwani, Khargone etc.,five days after Holi is bhoor or gaanda dahda, literally translated – crazy days. It is adivasi tradition that groups of people dress up in interesting attires and go from house to house in villages and ask for Bhangoriya. People give grains or money or whatever they have made or brought for the festival. After five days of collection, the team has a joint feast (funded from the collections) where the whole village or hamlet eats together. Small groups of children also do the rounds. It’s generally fun time. Many teams block roads with boulders and logs and ask all those who pass by – on foot, cycle, jeep or truck or bus. Some teams of Alirajpur and Chota Udaipur and Dharagaon districts are so beautifully dressed that they are a big tourist attraction too.

Two
     People’s movements and activists have always been wary of funding agencies. But funds are needed. There is always an impasse. Ultimately many bow to the Funding agencies, taking indirectly, through agencies who are friends or not that bad etc. and keep nurturing a guilt complex at having succumbed to making a compromise. They try to work, mostly in donation mode. In spite of this having been a very important issue with activists, they have not been able to work out ways of reaching out to ordinary people to raise funds for their work. Many times they don’t have the time. Basically fund raising has to be seen as part of the political activity and politicization of people.

One plus Two
     There is no dearth of creativity and spirit at Adharshila. And being part of the Khedut Mazdoor Chetana Sangath tradition we are diehard about combining fun with politics. Jayashree decided to take to the streets during bhoor, after Holi with Adivasi Mukti Sangathan activist Bijoy bhai, a leading Congress leader Mr. Motiyani and a band of enthusiastic students and ex studs of Adharshila. A pamphlet was printed highlighting the state of the country due to the policy of liberalization. They distributed the pamphlets and explained the issues to the people while asking for faag to support various struggles taking place all over the country against land acquisition by highways, SEZs, mining corporations and the likes.

     It was also a great public relation exercise and there were some interesting interactions with people. Some reacted with much empathy like the police commissioner – who told us how alarmed he was at the 165 Adivasi suicides that came across his desk in rural Sendhwa Thana in the past year alone. Others reacted with less emotion – like a hardware store manager who didn’t see the point of what we were doing with the flyer, as all the information could be found daily in the newspapers. And others with questioning minds – What you’re doing is fine, but is it really going to change anything? I mean, if people, just planted trees that would be more change than anything. Our response to this last comment… You are so right! Come to Sakad, and see our school. What was once barren land is covered with greenery because of our students and teachers planting and raising trees.

We hit everywhere we could from chai-walas to local public offices. They were people we had pre-existing relationships with, and many new friends were found.

     The money collected from the faag is to help people doing this kind of consciousness - raising work and to take forward the work of people’s struggles. Though our team was small (as most of our students were on break), our presence was definitely felt and appreciated.

We hope to do it even bigger next year ……….

End of year goodies!

2011-12-29T10:48:00.000+05:30

2011 is winding down...

but we have a few posts to be back-tracked.

Enjoy.

Diverse Actions all Around

2011-08-06T01:44:00.007+05:30

Once again we have a small poultry with seven hens and a cock. The hens have started laying eggs. A new platform is being made to put the hen cage. The platform so the rats and snakes don’t dine on the hens. Shanta our nursery teacher has found a new passion, doing masonary work almost everyday. The cock crows regularly at 5.45 am and everyday the kids visit them and watch them eagerly, jumping, fighting and contemplate.

Shanta and others working diligently to construct the hen cage

Sowing is complete. The amazon group had an English lesson on the farm and are trying hard to remember words like sorghum and millets and ploughing. Study has become regular for everybody. The water project is over and we are thinking of preparing a play on the theme of independence or more aptly - in dependence. The senior students said that they want to observe the weather but chickened out when they realized that it meant recording a lot of things everyday. Does anyone know where to get a hygrometer to meausure humidity ? Also they want to know how the groundwater got collected inside the earth. They also calculated the volume of a drop and the amount of water wasted in one hour from the water tank.

learning is live...

There was a lot of frisbee playing in the week with the visitors Adam(Canada) and Nihal(Bangalore) and the INSPIRE group – 9 NRI children from the US, spending a month in India visiting NGOs.

fris! fris!

Pumpkins, beans, gourds and ladyfinger have grown. We have planted about 50 papaya plants prepared in our inhouse nursery. Lakhs of subabool plants have grown every where. Our weeding strategy is to first weed around the vegetable plant. The rest of the space will be weeded after about 10 days when there is one or two leaves in the subabool. This will provide precious nitrogen diet to the plants. Right now we are preparing the flower beds to add a dash of colour to the green.

There was a random guy from Rajasthan, from some company who came and showed paper cutting techniques and croche work. His prize was that he sold off a few needles to the kids. It seems they are a group of about 50 young boys going around the village schools.

One of our bulls was not well. He had stopped eating. Now he is allright and is grazing. The other bull banged his horns into the cow’s head (his mother), breaking a horn. This led to much consternation as the cow is due to deliver in a month.

Finally after a month the climbing ladder for children has been made. ..and three snakes killed.

The Beginning - July 2011

2011-07-22T12:24:00.001+05:30

Well, finally the year has started at Adharshila.

All the rooms cleaned, most things placed in their places. Teachers know where to go when and the children too. How fast they adapt to a system, poor chaps. We have started knowing them a little, which ones come near and the ones who change course on seeing elders.

Initially we were sceptical about the number of children. Though 35 parents got there children registered in the meeting for new admissions, they did'nt turn up till one week. It was getting late and late. The monsoon was just not coming, just strong winds. People here, first think about the farm and then the children. As they have to take credit for both the ventures and of course the farm is more important. As the there was no sight of the monsoon the money lenders had stopped giving credit to the farmers not even after keeping silver. Every year at this time we think about good, free education for the poorest section of the people but stop short, thinking of fund raising as we are not into the institutional funding mode and rely on friends for support.

With no kids and no rains around we started dissecting the whole project of education, schooling and the uselessness and all the negatives and started wondering what we were doing here.

Eventually the rains came and the children too and ended all the conversations and rubbished all theories. About forty new faces, mostly boys though. Now we are around 80, twenty short of last year. Most of them are below 12 -13 years. Two have come to study for the 10^th open school exam and help in the school.

Our house too, now has a semblance of order. The rats have come down to a tolerable number. The plumbing line damaged due the uprooting of a tree near our water tank has finally been repaired and we have water in the one and only kitchen tap. Removing the tree was a very arduous task requiring hard labour of senior boys for almost six hours, done over two three days.

There is electricity, touch wood. It can come and go in a snap - very erratic like the rains this year. Actually this time of the year the demand for electricity is very less but the excuse for not coming are lightening and strong winds which damage the long wires and transformers. Valid excuse they say but we shell out for the burnt out laptop chargers and inverters. (inverter blown twice and one laptop charger gone in the past 15 days, we don’t count the mobile chargers as they are just 80 bucks).

But all this was not as easy as writing this paragraph. It took us and everybody here about two weeks and still we are on our toes. But the great thing is that we can do our own plumbing, and electricity repairs, and battery maintenance, in- house.

The children have been divided in three groups. Those who don’t recognize the alphabets and numbers, those who know all this, a little and the elder ones who have been here. There are two elder boys 8^th pass and 9^th fail, are training to help small children and about organic farming and whatever else goes on here. For starters most of the time is taken by singing and playing and vocal exercises and exploring the campus and surroundings. The main themes are rain, farming and water. So we have on the menu lot of songs, folk mostly, and exercises with water – words related to water and rain, why does water rise in a brick, which one is faster, sounds produced by water, how many drops of water my bottle can take… it will go on for almost twenty days.

And yes, we have set up our music room with two each of harmoniums, tablas, guitar and a small casio and dholak. Only thing lacking is a teacher. Please forward this to aspiring volunteers. Four children have started on the tabla and violin.

The best news at the end – Jayashree’s new venture this year is the poultry, so we have acquired three hens and cock which is crowing right now. This is being taken care of by Abhishek who went to an exposure visit to Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, to learn from the work of ANTHRA, an NGO.

Second, Majli a girl from the first batch of Adharshila has done us proud by helping Manish, in starting a new school in a very remote village with no electricity and road. The community had run a school for two years with our help but it had stopped. This year it’s on, again. Let’s see if Majli can take it forward. There are around 40 children there. She needs all support from all of us and friends.

Manish, will also be helping at Adharshila this year, while seeing the new school with Majli.

And thanks to Adam (a student of Environmental Science, Toronto, Canada) and Nihal (engineering student from Bangalore, India), who visited for a few days, for the pictures.

Bye for now. Hope to connect again soon.

New Blood in Old Huts

2011-03-14T16:21:00.004+05:30

Since last two years it has become a tradition ( i think two years qualify for a tradition in this fast paced world) that as soon as the hostel children leave for home on holidays the children from the Achchaliya hamlet of our village take over the campus.

They had been eying the huts for a long time, while passing this way, going to their fields or grazing cattle. Yesterday the school children left and today the Achchaliya kids came and promptly asked if they could also make huts. Yes of course, you can !!

Immediately they started repairing, making new rooms - walls and roofs and floor. They got a place to live of their own. They will happily water the tomato plot, trees, draw, learn a few English sentences. We couldn't take them beyond this last time. Lets see what all they do now.

One thing is that they are going to have a haircut. This costs 15 rupees in Chatli whereas they can learn to do it themselves here for free, here. Maybe we will take a nominal cost to get new scissors.

No they don't go to school but they come to Adharshila in the holidays. Once we named this place -Pooriyaan Jaaga, meaning children' s space. It is now.

Children's village v/s School

2011-02-23T19:46:00.003+05:30

…It is 3:00 of a sunny afternoon and wandering through Papita Hamlet, I find my way to Mullya’s hut, where kids are hooked with sheets of paper folding them into origami birds, boxes, and stars, which they hang from the ceiling. After he gives me some cool water, I move on to the Boyda Hamlet, where Sanjay gives me a tour- their house is under construction. He shows me the small enclosure they had just built for one of the new mother dogs and her puppies. We hang out in his neighbor Suklal’s house where he is copying song lyrics in his notebook, and begin to sing out the songs.

Adharshila is abuzz with energy. Very hectic activity. It starts at eight in the morning and children have to be dragged out at five or six in the evening. Since the last three weeks children are fully engaged, making small box like rooms for themselves, from anything they can lay their hands on – twigs, gunny bags, plastic, cloth, ropes, old anything.

They are sitting there, eating there, playing, chatting, reading and writing also, drawing. But mainly they are building the room, already repairing, rebuilding, changing location, decorating and going around.

It started as a joke but now it’s full time. Kids often play ‘make-believe’ which mimics reality. But this has everything to do with reality- the kids have brought in water pots for cool water, clothes washing spaces with drainage, a common open space with park-like benches, and racks for books, clotheslines, curtains, and small brick enclosed verandahs. A dry latrine is under construction. Outside one of the homes, a Subabool sapling and aloe vera plant have been planted and being drip irrigated (an overhung plastic bag filled with water with a small hole). A chalkboard with the school chants and all of the residents’ names is posted. As soon as the the kids heard a story of a boy in Africa who brought electricity to his home and village making a wind mill out of waste they started to ‘make current’ from gobar (dung). No two houses are the same and there is a steady flow of visitors to one another’s houses. There are three hamlets- Tower, Papita (papayya), and Boyda (hill)- with 2-5 houses in each hamlet and 4-5 students in each house. In all about 40 children are involved in this.

But…… everything is not happy, happy. There are fights – someone broke someone’s hut, hey you took my sticks or gunny bag, someone forcefully made a hut ….and so on. Also there’s been damage to public property …. as at least two new upcoming trees were broken, hedges were broken, new bricks were taken for construction, one almirah and the basement were ransacked for material ..

So …

...there was a meeting to frame rules ( of course we exercised our authority). Everybody had a say and about 20 rules were made – not to break new branches, enter with permission, elders not to bully small children, clean surroundings of hut etc.

Sounds like a lovely picture but there are some apprehensions and resistance from the teachers as well as senior students. One day the teachers were very upset as nobody turned in for ‘school’. They pulled out everybody from the huts and sent them to class

For the teacher, the question lies in how to do the ‘school’ stuff when all the students have gone off in different directions, each doing a different thing. Before the the establishment of this children’s village, the bell-guided school structure was set- morning prayer, class, breakfast, class, lunch, class, …. One thing that was done was to get rid of the class bell, as it went against the students’ flow of work in their new spaces. Again, there was opposition to this, but the question remained… how to add the school stuff in the context of what the students themselves created?

So we had a meeting to explain the importance of this activity and generate ideas on how to incorporate ‘ learning of subjects’….

We tried to tell them that this the best possible thing that can happen where children are doing something continuously for 12 hours, without being told anything. There must be something in this. We should think how this initiative can be extended to what we call studying or learning.

We explained that the biggest learning that’s happening now and which could never have happened inspite of our best efforts was that children were learning to use freedom creatively, decide what they want to do and pursue their ideas without anyone telling them to. They were learning self discipline. And if one is so keen on learning then they were learning real life the settling of villages.

This was all right they said but what about english, maths, science etc. what will happen to all that we have planned for them ? so we made some exercises –

For teachers –

Go by their (children’s) plan for a while.
Go to their huts and record what they are doing.

For children –

English excercises --- 1. Where do you live?

2. Who lives in your house?

3. When did you build your house?

4. What is your house made of?

5. What is in your house?

6. What are the names of trees by your house?

7. What are you doing?

8. What are you doing in the hut ?

Activities --- 1. Survey the village and the hamlets and make a list. Find out who lives where, the number of people in each house and total the number of residents.

2. Make a map of the village.

3. Plant a medicinal tree by your house.

Maths --- 1. Take measurements of your house, find it’s area.

2. Levels worksheets that students do them independently and move up as they successfully complete a level.

Each of these activities were written on a card and the children were free to take a card and do it anytime they wished to. On completing a card they had to show to the teacher who would correct it and put a tick mark on her list.

The students have been continuously and independently beautifying and ideating for a month now, everyday, along with the rest of the school activities- cooking, farming, theatre, singing. And the reading and writing is alive and well, as the houses are a favorite place for quiet (and uninterrupted by bells & teachers) study. They read, sing songs, make lists, tell stories, play cards, sleep, eat... the list goes on…

… I’ve heard that the physical environment is a major conditioner of behaviour. From observing and interacting with the children and their spaces it is evident that the kids hold a sense of ownership over their house, their work, their days. Hopefully this will help them take control of their lives in adulthood. One thing that can be surely seen is the drive they have in this new project, and there is potential for much more…..

On a Monday the teachers forgot all the meetings and rang the bell. Collected all the children in the ground and … go to class!!

Some children didn’t go. They were tucked in their new houses. They didn’t even go to class. Again meeting, reminding.

Now a bargain has been arrived at. Some time the children have to go to their level groups in English and Math. Sometimes they just sit and do whatever they want. Some time they are given activity cards and they can choose to do them whenever they want to. We are creating more spaces and activities so that they can go to them. For eg. There are two boxes with books, an almirah with some games. Children just go there, take out things on their own and keep playing or reading. We are trying to create more of these self service counters.

Problems

Some children become just wanderers and lost. It may be fine by us but not for parents.
Some just ape others. Not neccesarily thinking on their own.
The look of the school is very disorganised. The parents and visitors don’t like this.
The parents have a set idea and no exposure to innovative or alternative learning methods leave alone curriculum.
The children if questioned threateningly by parents or elders, just say that we are not taught. They don’t know the theory and merit of self learning.
Ultimately the children have to give exams so they have to ‘study’.

We are sure that this is a good thing and will continue with bargains. This concept has generated a totally new concept of a learning within a school environment and we are now working out a different architectural concept for this approach.

Anyone with an idea interested in coming and working with the students? Calling engineers, architects, artists, musicians, teachers…

Naatuk India Company presents --- Hum Kahan Ja Rahe Hain?

2011-02-01T17:30:00.008+05:30

14th January 2011, Merkhedi village, near Sendhawa, Madhya Pradesh.
Finally the day arrived for which we had been practicing and waiting for a month. The tent was huge and there were about 20,000 people. The children 10 – 18 years, all actors of the Naatak India Company (aka the students and teachers of Adharshila Learning Centre), were very excited, seeing the crowd. Nervous ? no sign of it. They had been specially called to perform their famous play Hum Kaha Ja Rahe Hain? (Where are we going?), by the organizers of the Adivasi Ekta Parishad’s Mahasammelan, the annual convention.

The play is old, though with every year comes new issues to tie in, new actors and actresses, and new audiences. What is this play all about? Why have we been showing it year after year?

As you can tell from the title, the play is about where Adivasi society is going- where it is going amidst a backdrop of proselytizing religious groups and political parties, land-hungry private companies, and an identity-conflicted youth generation. For example, Krishna Pawar’s original family name is Pawarkia, Gyarshilal Arya’s is Awayya, Vijay Solankie’s is Suwiya, and Babita Senani’s is Sustiya. These youth are all prime examples of the desire to shed one’s Adivasi identity and replace it with something else, something else more suited to what one hears in cities.

The shinyness of the market strongly influences youth with its hero-fashion images of how to look, what to wear and buy, and especially how to think. We show in our play how the outside inflences have created fights within families- between brothers, sisters, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, young and old. And the nature of these fights, a problem born in this generation, have become so so extreme that they rip at the very fabric that ties Adivasi families together.

So what does a young person do after these fights? What does one do after becoming disillusioned by the outside? Where does she/he go? As said earlier, political parties, religious groups, and private companies, are always ready to take in fresh people, especially those with land capital. What will the new generation do? At first glance, it seems that the choice is between modernism and tradition, new times and old times, but maybe there is more to it. Maybe theres is more to growing up in a society historically and highly connected to the natural environment yet currently entangled in the mainstream.

Hum Kahe Ja Rahe Hain? is a witty satire, a colorful expression, and a problem poser of these issues.

The great thing about the play is that most of the sets, props, dresses etc. are also made by the children with the help of elders. This year two senior students also developed background audio effects for the play.

The one and a half hour play was a hit. It kept the audience wide awake from 12 midnight to 1.30 AM. The school received donations, firewood and leftover rations worth almost Rs. 25,000.00.
We also had a book stall, where children sold books, posters and calenders on adivasi heroes.

The team got an invitation to perform in Shahada, Maharashtra. There also the play was very well received. The audience was shouting and laughing at every dialogue. People gave about Rs. 8000.00 in donation instantly.

Seeing the success of these plays once again our very old plan of having a jeep and roaming all around in the adivasi area, showing the play. Of course the fuel will be paid for by the hosts. But the jeep we have to manage. Any suggestions ?

PS – We are hoping to make a film of this in the near future. Be on the look out!! And any body wants to volunteer to get involved write to us fast.

We are all very pepped up. And what’s this … the day the theatre group had gone to Shahada to perform, the small kids left out of the play decided to have there own action. You won’t believe this but suddenly everybody is making a hut for themselves….

……. Wait for the next post on this extremely unique activity.

Diversity in Adharshila

2010-12-12T19:21:00.004+05:30

The year 2010 is the International Biodiversity Year and there are many types of insects in Adharshila.
In the school farm's fence there were two spider webs on Walpapdi creeper as shown in photos. The colour of spider was green with black spots on its back. It was not ever seen in the school.

One Month's firewood from our Campus

2010-11-29T16:43:00.000+05:30

A small step towards self sufficiency but very encouraging for us.
We have been thinking and working slowly at making the Adharshila Learning Centre's hostel for 100 kids

Exotic Insects

2010-11-05T08:05:00.003+05:30

Anil brought a green insect. It's wings looked exactly like a leaf. Everybody collected to see it.Most children thought that it must have been made from a leaf. This is general belief that many insects and worms are made from leaves or dung or mud.
Another insect looked like a stick. Yet another like a dried leaf. And what is this silver-golden object hanging from a branch. Vow! After four days a butterfly came out of it and the object now looks like an empty polythene bag.
Adaptation at it's best.Take a look at these beautiful creations of nature.

Ex Student is District Chess Champion

2010-07-23T00:01:00.004+05:30

Kamal Dudwe, a tribal, of Panjariya village, became the Barwani District Chess Champion. He has been selected along with two others to represent the district in the next level.

Why is he on our blog ?
Because he is our ex student. He is from the first batch and has stuck to Adharshila. Even though he is in college he stays at the Adharshila campus and helps in running it. He has been specifically looking after the tree plot which we are developing to become self sufficient in energy. He has topped in the third semester in college.

congrats Kamal.
We are looking for someone to coach him before the next level.

Sharing the Year 2009-2010

2010-07-16T10:26:00.004+05:30

It is always a pleasure to share what happened at Adharshila with friends. So here it is. sorry it is only in English right now.

Adharshila Learning Centre
2009 - 2010
Annual Report

run by
Jayashree, Amit, Badribhai, Devika behen, Shobharam Sir, Majali, Shewanta, Shanta – the regulars
Kamal, Suresh, Prakash, Jamuna, Dharmalata, Imla, Rakesh, Patidaar, Mahesh, Krishna – senior students
The Octopus and Nile group children
Manasi, Preeyanka, Roshan, Amit, - the volunteers

Veer Khajiya Naik Manav Vikas Pratishthan

Dear friends
Thanks to your support and the hardwork put in by the children and team, Adharshila completed it’s twelfth year.

The world of school education has been set on the path of far reaching changes.

On the one hand there is increasing awareness about the shortcomings of the existing school system amongst the middle and elite class. This has led to more and more people searching for alternatives within and outside the school system.

The Govt. on its part is trying to change the statistics of literacy and school going children and has brought in the Free and Compulsory Education Act. It is also trying to shed off its own responsibilty to give good education to these children and wants to put it in the lap of private sector and NGOs. It is trying to do more of the same without recognizing that this school system has failed us. We need to think more creatively than this.

The most dangerous thing is happening, as usual, in the villages where a whole generation is being misled by the false promise of prosperity that schooling will bring. It is well known that only 2% children, of those enrolled in the 1st, pass the 12th class. The schools are creating an army of youngsters who want quick money. If we look at this fact in conjunction with the trend of farm land getting converted to real estate, and being bought by city people, forced schooling almost looks like a designed strategy for land grab.

Cynicists! You will say. Always looking at the negative side. Well reality is grim. It may not look so from where we sit, comfortable.

We strongly think the discussion on education should go beyond schools, rules, shams and acts. It is a time to revisit the basics of education – the meaning of the word, the aims, the ideals. Also the link of education with creating opportunities for not just livelihoods but living honest and dignified lives. And lastly to create citizens for an India, a society, a nation envisaged in the constitution - …. Democratic, Secular, Equal, Just, Socialist ( removed from the Preamble without any public debate)…

Adharshila is an attempt to understand the nitty gritty of edcuation, from the child to the curriculum, the ideals and issues and search for alternative ways of learning – theatre, singing, walks, schools with class and classless schools.
We don’t contend to have got the magic wand. But the effort has been honest and. We have some learnings. Others can use them too if they are interested, but we don’t insist…

Happy reading.
Amit and Jayashree
For The Adharshila Team

The monsoon triggeres it. Hope and enthusiasm. Absolutely no scope for depression and negative thoughts. Yes this is the beginning. Remember life began with water. The rain greens the brownest patch. We are convinced, rain induces chemical changes in the brain – the smell, temperature, humidity – everything, triggers the adrenaline, which gives the mood and energy needed to engage in hard physical labor for an activity as risky as rain fed agriculture.
About 85 parents, read fathers, turned up seeking new admission for their wards, mostly sons. Many others came later. School is after the farm. We had a record 80 names in the waiting list and the yearly itch to start a new school, but no takers.

My brother’s family is coming here en-route Leh from Kanyakumari. We can’t let them see this mess. So cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, new bed sheets, groceries and at the eleventh hour we welcome them in clean clothes as if nothing happened. And already there is Roshan, the volunteer from US, actually Dubai, Maraike from Germany and Vipin from Bangalore to spend some time teaching adivasi kids before going for his Masters at Princeton – an impressive guest list. Raju, an Oriya MSW, whose enthu for digging (rings around trees to catch water) is infectious. I am cured of the infection in three days.

The monsoon was on time, and as soon as the children came they got engrossed in planting vegetables, trees and pulses. They also started making their own vegetable plots where ever they found place. They are divided in groups according to their learning levels – Beej, Yamuna, Kaveri, Brahmputra, Fifth, Amazon, Nile – combined, Octopus – eighth and the elders giving 10th from Open School. In all we are 110 staying here now, including the teachers. And the works start with songs, games and flower beds. The rush of photocopying primers prepared at Adharshila in the local language – Bareli; cleaning of rooms, vegetable plots for groups, lots of planning and changing plans everyday, confusions, tempers, bringing order to the Mess, complicated time tables of hundreds of things ranging from classes, student teachers, and duties to cook, look after the five animals, cleaning, making porridge on the Uganda Choolah – latest addition to the kitchen – thanks to Roshan’s research, Shakeel bhai’s luhari and Jayahree’s motivation and of course the 8th -10th children. It was efficient as it used only half the wood.
The savings were used to get milk for the mess. This lasted for about six months. The savings stopped but the milk continued.

Finally we are settled. Oh! More visitors from US. Hey is it the recession ? Maybe there is something to it. A team of NRI students comes to stay with us for four days. They were brought by an organisation called INSPIRE. We pushed them into making English lessons based on local topics with the help of children. One group even made a slide show of the lesson. Pascale, a French sculptress stayed with us for a week and made a bust of the legendary adivasi fighter – Tantiya Bheel. Two volunteers from Pravah, Sameer and Rakesh stayed for a month and took drawing classes. They also left their mark on the walls of Adharshila. Karishma and Shraddha, also NRIs, wandering in India seeing alternative education experiments stayed for a week and developed an English story with the children. The principal and staff of a local school and friends from Sendhawa too came to look us up. An old friend Bhupendrabhai brought a group of dedicated people running a school for adivasi children, in South Gujarat.

Besides chatting with so many different types of people and learning about their countries, concerns and professions the children prepared songs, plays and skits for the Independence Day function where the village Dai – Lohangya Bai, who has delivered two generations of Sakad village was called to hoist the flag to emphasize the importance of traditional knowledge. Ironically this year her daughter in law went to the hospital with the Asha worker, who has no experience of deliveries, just so that she could get the money given as incentive to go to hospitals for deliveries. ( preparing for privatization of health). We also celebrate 15th August as the tree planting day. The parents plant at least 5 trees on the campus. Actually for the whole of the first two months tree planting and water conservation around trees is a major activity, besides farming. This year Kamal, one of the senior most students took charge of the tree plot – anjanwada. He looked after the tree plot which has about 200 trees, very diligently.

We also helped the Jagrut Adivasi Dalit Sangathan to start a new school, Azaadi Shikshan Kendra, in a very remote village in the Pati block of our district. For us this was very inspiring as this is something we have been wanting to do more. Majali and Neela, teachers from Adharshila stayed there for a week to help them set up. Later two boys went to help them with the preparation of their inaugural function. We did a one day teacher training for the Primary teachers of Kasturba Girls School, Newali in our tehsil. This is a very old Gandhian centre. We were honored by the visit of its dedicated leader –Pushpa Behen. We also conducted a teacher training workshop for the Rani Kajal Shikshan Kendra in Kakrana, Alirajpur district. The children conducted a Baal Mela for the kids. This was done twice in the year.

Interesting projects that went on for the full year was participating in a research project. Alf, a researcher from Norway is writing a book on the Khedut Mazdoor Chetana Sangath, for his post doctoral research. This is the same KMCS where we were working before setting up home in Sakad. We convinced him to involve the senior students in the research project and in the process teach them the research methodology. In the end Alf became a very good friend and Majali, Shewanta, Suresh and Prakash did most of the 40 -50 interviews and Alf was very impressed with the quality of questions and the interviews. He also agreed to help in printing small booklets based on the interviews. We even intend to make small films from the interview recordings. He also entertained us by playing the guitar. The children and people in Sendhawa stared endlessly at his long, golden tresses.

The first term ended in September with the Bhutta Khane Ki Chutti – a unique feature of Adharshila. This is a special vacation for the children to go home and enjoy the fruits of the farm – corn, beans, etc.

As the term was ending we welcomed two volunteers from Indicor who helped us over the year in teaching English and Math to senior classes. One of them Mansi is still with us where as Preeyanki left towards the end of the year.

Another volunteer, Apeksha, from Pravah was with us for three months and helped in documenting the science projects of the primary groups.

After many years finally a team from Eklavya came to Adharshila to do science experiments with the children. They more than compensated for all the years of absence by conducting four workshops. Actually they were also testing their modules. On the side we used to get delicious Indori Chiwada. The children really liked these workshops as they got to see and handle scientific instruments and material for the first time.

There were many other workshops conducted for the children this year. Nishi from Mumbai conducted a personality development workshop through theatre, Mukesh and Rizwana, Docufilm makers from Indore conducted a theatre workshop and made a play on Tantiya Mama, a Media workshop by Roshan, and a film making workshop by Kavita from Drishti, Ahmedabad. Sant from CEHAT, Barwani, an organisation working for health rights, conducted a two day workshop on primary health and health issues. He told the students about various health schemes of the Govt. There was an in-house art workshop for smaller children. Piyush from Srishti Art School, Bangalore, worked with children for a week to create illustrations for a Bareli alphabet song. Anna, Jayashree’s father trained children to make Aakaashkandils as part of the Diwali celebrations.

The greatest thing is that these were conducted voluntarily by these friends. This is a big thing for us because it is an example that if we work outside the project and market mode we do get very good people to help us. Life and good things are possible without money. Vow!
Many interesting class projects were done, based on diverse themes – rivers, trees, insects, bio diversity, health, body and immunity, HIV, animals, cities, Independence movement, book making, comparison of local dialects. An energy project was done to figure out the energy needs of Adharshila, ways of reducing it and figuring out ways of creating energy in-house.
This year we were part of an Indo – German children’s learning project, thanks to Katha and the Tara Trust, Goa, of which she is a part. The children of the German school sent drawings depicting their lives, interests and what they had learnt about India. Through these drawing our children of Kaveri and Brahmaputra groups learnt about them. They responded by sending drawings depicting their lives and interests. The children also wrote pen friend letters to school children in Chicago, US and Manthan School, Jhiri, Rajasthan.

The Amazon and Nile group children made illustrated books of stories written by them.
The youngsters of Adharshila, headed by Majali, conducted Baal Melas in about nine schools engaging about 1200 children in interesting games, songs, science experiments and creative activities. Two of these Baal Melas were held in schools in Sendhawa town.
Our theatre team, The Naatak India Company performed in front of a ten thousand strong crowd at the Adivasi Ekta Parishad Sammelan near Dhule, Maharashtra. They were invited especially to perform a play depicting the dilemmas of Adivasis in the modern society. We have shown this play to about 80,000 people in the last 10 years. The theatre Company also performed a play showing the plight of women and girl child, in Sakad on 8th March – Mahila Diwas. The women’s play was also shown at an anti dowry meeting, called by the Jagrut Adivasi Dalit Sangathan.

Three senior volunteered to help in organizing the library of the Adivasi Mukti Sangathan. Five teachers and students participated in two rounds of the Activist School held by SRUTI. About 20 students participated in this when it was held at our place. We attended SRUTI’s 25th year celebration function.

Three girls went to the Arch Vahini hospital in Gujarat to learn the treatment of scabies. Two boys went to another NGO in Gujarat to get a basic knowledge of electrical circuits, solar lamps, windmills and LED’s.
Amit was invited to take part in the Indicor Orientation Workshop, the Board meeting of Youth for Leadership program, as a guest, the celebration of 25 years of SRUTI and a youth workshop in Ranchi organised by Sangharsh Vahini.

Hey just now, while writing this report, I got news that one of our ex students Geeta has topped in 12th in the Chatli High School with, 84%. – Maji lal another ex has scored more than 80% in the District Excellence School, in the 12th class. This is good. Very Good in fact. In the same school Vijay also got more than 80% in the 10th( there are some who got supplimentary and one or two even flunked). We hope there will be a time when at least some adivasis will get into competitions on merit and not reservation alone.

So what are these ex students doing actually ? The ones who have passed the 12th grade. Well we are trying to list batch wise. It seems there are all sorts – at least five got married and even have kids. Some are toppers. one is with us managing the primary section of Adharshila. At least two are in professional colleges. One is preparing for the PCS and ICS exam. One is keen to work with youth. Let’s see. The rewards of being a teacher. Dealing with these older kids was one of the big challenges this year, when they begin to be non communicative with us. We, in-spite of realizing everything couldn’t break the jam. Due to the fact that they have been staying with us since they were kids, one type of relationship has developed. Now they are young adults and we need a different equation which we couldn’t work out. Lets see next year maybe.
While we are talking of results - Nine Children passed the fifth exam with good grades. They were enrolled in a Govt. Primary School in a nearby village and went to give the exam there.
Eight children passed the 8th exam mostly getting first division. Three managed to get more than 75%. They gave the exams from a private school.

Five passed the 10th exam from the open school, two of them in the first division.
Three boys gave college exams – first semester and third semester.
One girl is studying for the 12th exam through open school and five are studying for the 10th exam through open school.

The Organic Farm produced about 12 quintals of vegetables and pulses thanks to the tireless efforts of Dewika Behen, Jayashree, Badri bhai and almost all children who participated in all activities starting from ploughing to cooking. The soil is becoming better with more and more mulch being heaped in it. This a major task bringing dry leaves from the forest, road side or wherever.

The cow produced a she calf. Thanks to her the children got more than 700 liters of milk.
And one more thing - the music teacher and the dance teacher. Every Sunday they came here from Sendhawa to teach the children. Thanks to our music loving friends who raised the money so that children could learn classical music and dance. About ten children gave the music and dance exam from Prayag Sangeet Samiti.

During the year we also constructed a biggish covered verandah next to the hall, a cowshed and raised the roof of the girl’s room.

As usual the year ended with the Annual function and exhibition. The function went on for about 4 hrs. almost all the school children participated on stage. The exhibition had more than 100 exhibits in the form of charts and models depicting everything that they had learnt during the year. They explain to all visitors in the local language as most of the visitors are illiterate ( inspite of all the statistics of literacy and adult literacy and enrollment).

Like last years the children made greeting cards to raise money for their educatonal tour. Anita and Preeyanka helped in making and selling them. And they went to see the Ellora caves. The smaller children went to various places in the district.

Children’s Evaluation which lasts for a month where they have to revisit everything that they have learnt over the year. The 6th -7th graders prepare files of the work they have done listing books read, their own writings –essays, stories, poems etc, drawings or whatever they want to show. This not marked or graded. They also have to write essays on social topics and also topics related to science. Quizzes, math tests. They have their hands full. The problem for them is that even after doing so much they don’t get a regular report card with marks which they can show off to friends. That’s why most of them want to go to regular schools.

And in the middle of all this we had to do the Tantiya Mama Kabaddi competition. This year 8 teams participated and everybody had fun. It was hosted by the Sakad Panchayat.
In the rush we also got printed a booklet on the life and struggle of Tantiya Bhil, with the help of Madhulika who helped in the layout and Suvidha who did the illustrations. We were very keen to release the book in the Kabaddi competition. Without the help of Ashok Bhai and friends at Roopankan, Indore, it wouldn’t have reached us on time. We printed another booklet – Hum Kaun Hain, to initiate discussion about adivasi identity, amongst tribal elites. The Aadivasi Riti Bachao Toli published this for us.

After all the children had left, the teachers had to stay back to review the year’s work.
Jayashree stayed back to enjoy the peace of the place after every body had left. Due to her encouragement the children of the Sakad village took over Adharshila during the summer vacation. They are still around. They came everyday, watered the plants in the nursery. This is a very important part to make Adharshila self sufficient as far as fuel wood is concerned. There are close to 1000 saplings to be planted next year in our campus and to be given to children of Sakad village who looked after it. They also looked after the animals and played and sang the day out. The teachers took turns to look after the place in the summers.

We have sown and are waiting for the rains. We are waiting for the next lot of children and maybe some volunteers too. We are waiting for a mason, an electrician and ironsmith.

Thanks to…
We want to especially thank Manasi, Preeyanka, Roshan, Apeksha, Rakesh and Sameer who volunteered at Adharshila this year and the organizations – INDICOR, Ahmedabad and PRAVAH, Delhi who facilitated these volunteers. And EKLAVYA for doing the science workshops.

We also thank the parents from Rojani Maal village who donated two truck loads of dry wood which saved a lot of money for us, Eklavya who gave a set of scientific instruments and Mr. Shah from Mumbai, who gave two boxes of stationery. Daava, who donated a laptop ( as penalty for not keeping the promise of volunteering).
In the end we have to thank all the Friends of Adharshila for having faith in us and our work and for keeping the spirit of charity alive. Due to this we ran one more year without a grant though we would like many more to join in for the new schools. – Medha Mathur, Vandana Kumar, Mrs. Bagchi, Ms. Pushpa Nagpal, Karina Michelles, the INSPIRE group, Ravindra, Ramesh Bhai, Vidya, Rohini from Kolkata, Narsingh and Rashmi Narayan from Hyderabad for the music classes, Vibhash Sureka, Indore, Uma Sudhir and friends from Eklavya Indore, Rosalin Mulji, Rosy Martin, Pratibimb, Bangalore, Katharina Poggendorf Kakkar, Nikita, Dr. Sneh Raj, Ms. Chitra Kumar, Ms. Madhulika Aggarwal, Ravindra Shroff, Magan Bhai, Umesh Atree.

Art Shivir 2010

2010-03-15T08:42:00.003+05:30

A friend from Mumbai recently sent us some stationery and art supplies. We held an art shivir here in Sakad to celebrate. We are planning a series of Art Melas and shivirs in various villages and nearby schools to give more children a chance to explore their artistic side. See the pictures from the Adharshila Art Shivir here.

Antar-rashtriya Mahila Diwas (International Women's Day) 2010

2010-03-14T21:02:00.002+05:30

This year we decided to share International Women's Day through a play by our very own Naatak India Company.

Since we were just returning from Bhangoria break, preparations and rehearsals went until a few hours before showtime. The costumes were collected from villagers and props from the junk collection of Adharshila. Since the play was to be staged at night in Sakad, a publicity team, armed with a battery operated megaphone and facts about Women's Day, went round the village to inform everyone about where to gather. The electricity, our old friend, acted up soon before showtime. At the last minute villagers volunteered with creative outdoor wiring at Rajarambhai's farm, where the play was being staged, ensured some halogen lighting for the stage. About 250 people attended, including Gendrambhai, Mahila Sarpanch of Sakad, Gitabai, the new Mahila Upsarpanch of Kunjari village and and Remlibai, Mahila Sarpanch of Chatli. The play dealt with treating boys and girls equally and local issues of dowry and alcoholism through acting and song. The Adharshila Band organized music and sound. The first part starred girls only, and the second, boys only, with both playing costumed roles of both genders. Though this was unplanned, we all felt it embraced the spirit of Women's Day in the village-when both sexes are able to see the other's point of view, it brings them closer to resolving the issues between them. We saw many laughed and listened intently last night, but the proof was the conversations the women of Sakad had with us the next morning. Savitri Bai said that our lives will surely change if people are shown such plays regularly.
One of the main themes of Adharshila is to initiate and motivate children to take their knowledge and new progressive ideas to the villagers. Though the children have been doing Baal Melas in villages where they engage children in creative activities and science experiments, this was a first of this type of intervention.
Gajanand Bhai, a newly elected Janpad Panchayat member told the gathering that the newly elected panchayat bodies of Kunjari and Chatli villages have passed a resolution to close the illegal liquor shops in their villages, under the leadership of women Sarpanchs.

See the photos here

It's Holi, I Mean Bhangoriya

2010-02-28T13:36:00.003+05:30

The Pre Holi happenings

Everybody means that the school children had already gone home for the festival. We had to give a long leave as some children had started running home. Well what's wrong with letting children go home for festivals ? We claim to have an educational programme based on the local cultural context. Well nothing, just that they wont come back for another 15 days. A bit too much if you are keen to do schooling too. But we are an alternative school, we said ? Yes but then people insisted on their children taking the board exams. And they crib if the kid doesnt learn English or Hindi or Math. So. So they will stayback when they have board exams. Thats what they are doing. The 8th class and 5th class were here and are still here. Jayashree has taken them to see Bhangoriya as they have a two day gap before the next exam.

Bhangoriya is part of a series of events that make up Holi, a major festival of the Bhil, Bhilala, Barela, Pawara, Naik, Dhanak and other tribes of western India. Haat is basically a market. Each market town has a fixed day on which the market ' fills'. That day is called by the name of the place where the market 'fills' on that day. For eg. Sendhawa'n dahda(day) is Sunday as the market fills in Sendhawa on Sundays. "Haata Karne', in the local language means exchanging. It could have originated from the system of barter. So Haat becomes the place where everybody brings there ware to barter on a fixed day.

Two weeks before Holi is Teevariya Haat where people come to shop for the festival. Clothes for the family, jaggery, eats and lots of titbits. The next week is Bhagoriya. This is like a crowd of people moving on the main market road like a river. As the day progresses most of this river is drunk. Its a mela. Each day in a different market place for one week. Then Holi. The sarkaari Holi - the official one. One day after the sarkaari Holi is the Holi in the village where Holi is burnt at night near the village head's house and the whole village collects there. Each household contributes a log of wood for this huge fire. These days they make do with cowdung cakes. People bring the huge drum and flutes and dance in streets. Groups of young boys in and groups of young girls roam around. Laughing and giggling and teasing each other.

After Holi for the next five days is Gaanda Dahda. The five crazy days. Gangs of children and people put stones, rocks, logs on the roads and stop everyone and anyone and ask for money. You can't go ahead without giving some thing. Some people in villages become boodlas. A group of people dressed in different costumes. Each group has some specific charactors like raavi, kali, etc. Some men are dressed like women. They dance and go around in villages asking for grain or money from all the houses in the villages. Even in towns. These are official. There is a religious angle to this too. At the end of the five days of collection they come back to the village and cook and eat together with the whole village which is called goot.

And I forgot the Melas in villages. Every four five km. there is a mela somewhere. So basically its Holi days till the 7th of Feb.

If I was'nt clear, this is great fun time for the people here. Everything else just stops. Hey, there is'nt anything else. Is there ?

Holi marks the end of the festival season. After this is work. Start preparing the fields. The big drum is kept away and will be taken out next year on the village Diwali day. Really a befitting end to the agriculture season.

An aside. Some arithmatic. Each family spends on an average Two Thousand Rupees. If we take an average of 100 houses to a village it becomes Two lakh per village. Who says tribals are not contributing to the GDP !

What We Did in 2008 -2009 - Annual Report

2010-01-17T20:13:00.007+05:30

If you are interested in knowing what keeps us busy at Adharshila all year round.

Dear friend,

We are happy to send you Adharshila’s Annual Report for the academic year 2008 -09. We take this opportunity to thank you for the support you have extended to Adharshila. Due to your invaluable support for the last eleven years, hundreds of adivasi children of Barwani, Jhabua and Burhanpur districts of western Madhya Pradesh have been able to get an education which they could never have dreamt of.
This year has been an year of terror and shock inflicted upon humanity. The terror emanated from fundamentalist ideologies - religious and economic.
This has convinced us more about our project of promoting values like humanism, secularism, selflessness, equality, strengthening of community life etc. through education. It has firmed our resolve to take the work of Adharshila forward towards creating a more just, equal and humanitarian society as opposed to a society of atomized individuals motivated by consumption and greed.
We feel there is an urgency to spread these ideas amongst children and youth – who are going to be tomorrow’s leaders.

Once again thank you for taking part in this process of change and looking forward to your continued support and inspiration.

Warm regards
Amit and Jayashree
For
The Adharshila Team

ANNUAL REPORT 2008 - 2009
ADHARSHILA LEARNING CENTRE
MADHYA PRADESH

The Team
Shobharam Kanouje, Shewanta, Shanta
Majali, Anita, Balsingh,
Kamal, Seetaram, Deewan, Dinesh, Anil, Shersingh,
Jamuna, Dharmalata, Kavita, Reena
Shailaja, Ranjit, Zahid and Roshan
Badri Bhai, Dewika Behan
Jayashree, Amit

Run By
Veer Khajiya Naik Manav Vikas Pratishthan
Village Sakad, PO- Chatli, Dist. Barwani
Madhya Pradesh
adharshila.learningcentre@gmail.com

Roll Call
The school started on 25th June 2008, with the onset of the monsoon with 60 day scholars and 90 in the hostel completing the quota of 150 students.
Facilitators
This year was lucky for us. We got a MSc. (Math) person who took care of middle and high school student’s, science and math classes for 6 months. One more for primary classes joined us. In addition to these we had a strong team of about 20 student teachers (senior students studying from 8th -12th classes). Majali, an ex student took the responsibility of co-coordinator of the primary section.
We were fortunate to have five volunteers from PRAVAH, INDICORPS, ahmedabad and individuals, who helped the children with English, Math, Craft, documentation work and generally in running the place.
The many visitors from various countries and states also helped the learning process of the children.
Academics
Results - The traditional measure
One old student who stays and helps in running the show at Adharshila got the 2nd position in the first semester of college. He missed the first just by 1% Two others from this batch are preparing for the PMT exam and keep in touch with us regularly.
Two students passed the 12th exam, one got 70%. Another came 2nd in the district in the excellence school admission test.
Many of our students who joined the Govt. Schools are doing extremely well. The Chatli High School Principal openly confessed that their school was getting good results because of students from Adharshila.
Interesting class projects done in the year besides the regular text book include The children were divided in 10 groups. Lot of stories, songs, activities and trips were used to aid their learning process. Many projects were undertaken - Equality and Caste System, History Time line from Apes to today's cities and villages, Classification of Animals, Evolution, Animals, Elements needed for growth of plants, Forests, Directions, The History of Man, Threshers made from recycled materials, Pin boards for two , classes made from recycled paper, How a cycle works, Modern modes of communication (Email, SMS, Post), The Solar System
Learning Opportunities at Adharshila
Adharshila is known not just for the good performance of the children as compared to the surrounding schools but more so for the learning opportunities it creates outside the classroom.
Art and craft : Children did a lot of craft work this year. One of the volunteers along with one of our own craft teacher helped the children in learning many types of crafts with different materials. A regular art and craft class was run, where children did origami, greeting card learnt jute knitting, etc..
Theatre etc. : Regular practice of drama and legime was done in afternoons. 2 students went for a film making workshop at Udaipur. One student who is learning organic farming, went to a sangathan meeting to convince people to adopt organic farming . 8-9 farmers –
Interactions with visitors : Many visitors come to Adharshila every year. This was an international visitor year for us. People from the US, Canada, Israel, Belgium and England. We also had visitors from Rajasthan, Orissa and Delhi. Children learnt about these states and countries by talking to these visitors in class and informally. Learning Workshops at Adharshila
Health and Body Awareness - Rinchin a social worker from Bhopal held a four day workshop on Body Awareness and health.
Story Telling and Criticism - Rinchin also held story telling sessions of stories she had written while she was working on a health programme in our district.
Muriel, a children's story writer and also a parent, home schooling her daughter also demonstrated how stories can be used to teach social science topics to children.
Film Making - Kavita, from Drishti, Ahmedabad held a 4 day film making workshop. 22 students and teachers participated in it. They were taken on a learning journey from story writing to handling the camera. They took shots for a film on Adharshila. This process will hopefully continue the next year also.

Learning Opportunities outside Adharshila
3 Suresh, Prakash, Seetaram, Balsingh and Shewanta - accompanied by Roshan a volunteer and Amit, attended the Activist Training held at the Manthan Learning Centre, Rajasthan where a beginning was made to understand their social reality. They also learnt about the origin of the Earth
3 Anita, Jamuna, Revali and Sunil went to the Sampoorna Kranti Vidyalaya, Vedchi, Gujarat for one month, to learn the full process of cloth making by hand right from cleaning raw cotton, ginning, spinning on the Amber Charkha, and weaving on a small Manipuri Loom. They also attended the Gandhi Mela in Surat - a big affair where many organizations participate.
3 Majali attended a two day women's workshop in Nagpur. She got an opportunity to understand the problems of women's organizations in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi etc.
3 Shobharam Kanouje, a senior teacher at Adharshila and Dinesh a student went to attend a two day training held by a reputed NGO in Pune, to learn about generating electricity mechanically. The workshop did not turn out to be as productive as we had thought, but they got an idea.
3 The senior students observed the process of elections. This was a new initiative where the organization did meetings in the district to convince people that the candidate should be selected by the community and not by party leaders sitting in Delhi.
Student Events
Students were very involved locally in many fields. Taking part in events and organizing them is a great for confidence building, self esteem and developing leadership skills.
3 The music team performed before at audience of 25-30,000 at the Narmada Maha-rally. They also participated in an election awareness campaign for six days with the Adivasi Mukti Sangatan(AMS) a local people’s movement on.
3 The Adharshila Band was at it's peak during this season. In general it was a musical summer. With the music team they recorded a lot of music. From a distance or listening to the recordings nobody can guess the instruments.
3 A student also spent a month as a volunteer at the AMS office.
3 The cricket team lost to the Sendhwa Public School team by 17 runs, while in chess, our team notched up 4 victories. Our two chess losses came at the hands of opponents twice the age of our students.
3 Three students, Sitaram, Suresh and Majali, received awards in a Hindi essay writing contest, while student-teacher Kamal placed first in his college exams. This period also saw regular music, dance and art teachers join our staff.
Major School Events
In all these events the students and children help in organizing the event according to their age.
Sports Day - This is easily the happiest week, with children practicing, preparing the ground and anticipating the gifts( prizes). Children from 6 schools participated in the sports day. For the smaller children most games were non - competitive and in the end everybody got a gift.
Tantiya Mama Kabbaddi Competition - This event was started last year for the village youth, who have to rely on 3rd grade films or liquor for entertainment. The good thing about this was that it was organized purely by the senior students and teachers. Eight village teams participated in the event. Cash prizes worth Rs. 3000 were given to the winners.
Primary Section Annual Function and Parents Meeting - Usually this is a big affair at the end of the year. This year we changed the practice and called the parents at the end of each term. The children put up a show to tell what they had learnt in the term. They also exhibited their work through charts and displayed the craft work that they had made.
In an in-house meeting with the children of the primary section at the end of the year the small kids told about their impressions of the year. Many of them came up with complaints of beating by elder boys and the elder boys apologized. Everybody was overwhelmed by the way the small pips were standing up and speaking up. Nobody felt bad at the complaining.
A report with grades and the child's general progress was also given to the children and discussed with the parents.

Festivals
Many festivals were celebrated at the campus. Like every year this year's holi was a zabardast affair. This year the school was not closed. The full gang was there. Holi is very special at Adharshila because the students, big and small, freely throw mud, ash, water and colour on the teachers and other elders, sparing no one. It is really a time to forget who we are and indulge in true child like enjoyment.
During Diwali, students learnt to make chandeliers from recycled materials, as well as rangoli and wall painting. They also learnt to make gujia and puri sabzi.
All the local festivals are also celebrated.

Teacher Trainings3 At the start of the new session, a five day training was organized where 14 teachers from Adharshila, Rani Kajal Jeevanshala, Dist. Alirajpur and from schools affiliated to Adharshila were present. These schools are being run by people's initiatives. The main theme of the training was about making the school a place to promote democratic, secular and progressive ideas. The project approach of teaching for the middle sections was also discussed.
3 Two boys from Jagrit Dalit Adivasi Sangathan and one from Burhanpur Sangathan stayed with us for two months for training after which they started schools in their areas.
3 Teaching through stories : Muriel, a children's story writer, published by Scholastic, spent ten days at Adharshila. She worked with students and teachers, exploring the power of stories as learning tools. She also trained the teachers, to harness the potential of storytelling.
3 A one week shivir for our teachers/ student teachers was held ( 3 hrs/ day) to remove the doubts about Adharshila or the fear of not following the regular system.

Curriculum Development
Adharshila developed academic material and textbooks for several levels during this period. Though the work did not proceed at the pace at which we wanted to but still we were able to develop some primers. This definitely improved the quality of teaching. Among these are:
a. English poetry collection for Levels 1 - 3. We are making small poems in English based on themes familiar to children there.
b. Hindi poetry for Levels 1 - 5.
c. English conversation for Level 1and 2
d. English teaching books based on phonetic system - Level 1and 2.
e. Hindi reading material for Levels 1- 3
f. Activities and lesson plans for 8 topics were prepared for 6th - 8th grades.
g. The teachers wrote out there weekly plans for two terms ( about 6 months). Of these the programme for the two smallest groups has been typed out for the full year. Next year the teacher will get a ready planner and will be able to spend more time on thinking about teaching methodology rather than content.
Publishing
a. A Children's Magazine, Baal Oorja –Four issues of a children's magazine - Baal Oorja were taken out. One of the volunteers helped in this. The last issue was taken out completely by a senior student. He learnt to do the layout through this. The matter was written completely by the children of Adharshila. We invited articles from other schools but nobody responded.
b. A book based on the malnutrition and food availability survey has gone for publication. This study had received first prize at the National Children's Science Congress last year.
c. The children chose a topics of their interest., researched it and made their own books. Some children illustrated them also.
d. We published the books for the primary section ( in-house ) mentioned in the Curriculum Development section.
New Initiatives -
New Schools
We are constantly trying to convince people's organizations to start rural schools through people's initiatives. One new school was started in Burhanpur and another in Barwani district. The teachers for these schools were trained for 2 months in Adharshila.
Yuma Shivir
Due to the insistence of yeas in Adharshila a yoga shivir was organized. The theme of the shivir was - ' Youth is the future of India but what is the future of Youth' About 25 boys and girls between 16 - 20 years from 8 villages attended the shivir for 2 days. The shivir concluded with discussing ways of increasing the learning opportunities for youth in villages. They listed many things which they wanted to learn ranging from herbal medicine to film to moths.
Sale of farm products - A preliminary meeting of farmers was called to discuss ideas to sell farm produce directly to consumers in cities. The people were positive and even collected about 50 Kg. pulses and 5 Kg. haldi.

Organic Agriculture :
Like every year, organic farming was one of the main activities that engaged children all the year round. This year we sowed jowar on an experimental plot of 500 sq.m ( 5 gunthas) and got 2 quintals. This is pretty good for a start. Besides this we harvested 7 quintal vegetable and 3 quintal daal and fodder for 5 cattle. We did not have to buy for at least 3 months for the mess feeding 100 students.
Through this the children learnt many practices of organic agriculture which they practice at home also like making Jivanamrut – an organic fertilizer, mulching plants with leaves, composting and making organic pesticide from leaves etc. They also learn principles of science, ecology and problems of farmers through this work.
Small plots were allotted to children’s groups where they grew vegetables.
Drip irrigation, brought from Wardha was also tried in the tomato plot successfully. We also sowed coriander on a large scale specifically to raise money. The crop was great but the price was so low that it barely fetched the cost of seeds and transport.

The cow gave birth to a calf taking the tally of animals to 5. We got about 250 lit. milk for the mess.
Forestry
1000 saplings of Garside, Sesbania, Papaya, perennial Tuwar, Jungle Jalebi, etc…were grown in the nursery which was set up in March 2008. Of these 700 saplings were planted by students and parents. Of these 400 were saved by the end of the term. It was a pleasure seeing the teamwork and dedication of the small children who took special interest in developing small plots of trees, where they sat for hours after classes. A nursery has been made to develop plants for the next season.
Contact with Surrounding Villages
Baal Melas - Baal Melas, performed in villages engaged nearly 400 children for the whole day in various fun and science activities.
Cycle yatra : 12 students from Adharshila went on a 5- day cycle yaatra which covered 200 km .The main purpose of cycle yatra was to learn about the state of education in the villages. Students held meetings, sang songs and exhibited posters.
Youth Groups : A dialogue with the youth of Sakad village was started by the volunteers. Though a concrete group did not form but a good relationship was formed.
Reaching out
3 Participation in dharna : About 30 students of middle and high school of Adharshila participated in a protest against irregularities in the running of the PDS shops of the area smoothly.
3 Our music team performed in front of a 25,000 people at the NBA rally in Khandwa.
3 Adharshila's Naatak India Company performed yet another hit play in the Barela Pawra Adivasi Sammelan held at Pansemal.
3 A meeting for the members of Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan, M.P. was held to explain to them the problems of the present education system and ways of bringing about change in it. The theme was explained with the help of songs and a poster exhibition. They have decided to start a people's school.
3 A teacher and two students were invited to be facilitators of a children’s workshop on craft hosted by the NGO Muskaan in Bhopal.
3 Three other students represented Adharshila at a crafts workshop hosted by the Rani Kajal Learning Centre in Kakrana. They also took the opportunity to explore the history of people’s movements in the area.
3 We volunteered to make a ring tone and record songs for the election campaign of an independent candidate.
3 Jayashree went to the women's workshop in Nagpur as a resource person.
3 Amit was called to deliver a key lecture on Work and Education in a state level workshop held by NCERT, in Bhopal

Health Awareness amongst students and community
Primary health is one of the subjects which have been pursuing keenly. This year we took a number of steps to increase awareness about health issues amongst the students of Adharshila and surrounding villages.
3 This year too the middle school children studied primary health as a subject. Primers prepared by reputed organizations working in the health sector viz. CEHAT, Nirantar and VHAI were used.
3 The exhibition on malnutrition was shown in schools in surrounding villages. The exhibition was also shown during the cycle yaatra. The villagers watched the exhibition with great interest and had a lot of questions for the children.
3 Rinchin, from Bhopal who is active in campaigning for various health issues conducted a 3 day workshop for elder children. She did a body mapping exercise and explained the principles of preventive health to them.
3 Two students chose to take health related topics for preparing project reports for their final evaluation.
3 One student went to Gujarat and stayed for 15 days in a rural hospital run by Arch Vahini a reputed NGO working in the health sector. He used the skills learnt there throughout the year dressing wounds not just of children but elders also.
3 At least three discussions were organized with the senior students on health related issues. One of these discussions related to the debate in the parliament regarding giving biscuits to children instead of mid day meals. Another related to chronic malnutrition in a district of MP and the govt. decision to give them special nutrient drops to be mixed in the dough to fight malnutrition. Very interesting and heated discussions took place.
3 A book on malnutrition has been published based on a food availability study done by students in surrounding villages.
3 We started the process of making guidelines for a health curriculum for primary and middle classes.

Even after doing all this there are questions in the mind - where is all this leading to ? What is the contribution of Adharshila in building a more equal and just society ?

Review of Adharshila' work and Exploring new possibilities - We invited Shri Dutta Savle an experienced activist, to review the progress of our work and explore new possibilities. He was with us for 5 days. After a lot of brainstorming and reflecting on past experiences - ours and others, it was decided to start separate activities to engage the youth of the area. The youth shivir was one of the outcomes of this. It was felt that the school part is also necessary and should be systemized further. Talking to him was a very rejuvenating experience. He was very hopeful as education is a long term investment programme and does not show immediate results.
Infrastructure
3 A new classroom for small children was built.
3 Books worth about Rs. 5000/- were added to the library.
3 3 new almirahs were built and installed in the main building.
3 The installation of a transformer also meant regular voltage, even though electric supply is still sporadic, that allows for the running of several laptops for several hours. This has allowed, among other things, regular computer classes for 8-10 students.
3 We also experimented with a bucket latrine as a replacement to our septic tank system.. As narrated on our blog, the project was eventually abandoned for a lack of volunteers to do the necessary maintenance.

Visitors
3 20 young Indian Americans were here for 8 days to know about alternative ways of learning and trying to understand the problems of rural India.
3 Shyam Kansal - A rice mill owner from Orissa stayed with us for three days to discuss the possibilities of starting a similar venture in his place.
3 Muriel and her daughter who delighted the children with her stories.
3 Michelle and Sebastian-Canadian Filmmakers documenting alternative education initiatives in Asia
3 Netta- An Israeli girl interested in Nai Talim education and how it could relate to her country.
3 Shelley- The editor of The Monthly, Australia’s most eminent political journal, along with her brother, passed by.
3 Eames Demetrios, an American documentarian, storyteller and designer.
3 Jordan a photographer from Canada spent three days with us.
3 Abhinav a graduate in electrical engineering stayed with us for 5 days. He also wants to open a school near Jabalpur..
3 A team of students, teachers and coordinators from Hunar Ghar, Rajasthan, stayed with us for a week.
3 A team of Karyakartas from Orissa Jan Adhikar Morcha from Orissa, spent a day at Adharshila.
3 Lokashish and Kavita from PRAVAH, Delhi
3 Nidhi, from Indicorps, Ahmedabad
3 Shashank and Karuna, Madurai
3 Damyanti, Accounts consultant, Pune
3 Winter Birds: The Wagtail from the Himalayas, the Green Bee Eater and the Black Drongo.
Our students took the opportunity to interview our guests and learn all they could while they were here.
Finance
We are indebted to SRUTI, New Delhi, The INSPIRE group, Ms. Madhulika Aggarwal, Shri Sudhanshu Pandey, Shri Rahul Ram, Shri Ramesh Kacholiya, Zindabaad Trust
Shri Eams Demetrios, Ms. Michelle and Shri Sebastian, Shri Usha Kant Varma,Shri and Shrimati Sodhi, Jojo, City Automation Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi and Shri Shyam Kansal for their generous financial contribution to Adharshila.

The Party is Over.

2009-11-08T21:06:00.004+05:30

A short diary of what's going on at Adharshila.

We are back in Sakad lazily to work. On coming back we realised that this hot November is full for us. Fighting with the neighbor over the boundary of our land trying to collect 25 quintals of fodder for our cow's family of 5 from the people who are growing wheat by taking electricity from our campus connection obviously by bribing the lineman - the official for the electricity dept.

Also there are going to be two three workshops with children - one to participate in a research with a Norwegian post doc. studying the Sangathan in Jhabua which we helped initiate. Another five day theatre workshop and another science workshop by a leading NGO -Eklavya.

The tomatoes have got virus and we are desperately spraying cow's urine. We have to uproot the ado and lake plot which gave us about 2 quintal harvest last season and plant methyl palace and mole. Maybe we will try more tomato.

The 3 volunteers after staying quite for 2 months have now started question about things which they had imagined and not finding here or had seen on the website but don't see on site. So a lot of time is spent talking to them. Another last year volunteer is coming back this year thanks to the motivation he got by living with us last year.

Our school kids are growing up and maybe we will have to start a marriage bureau soon.

Yes I forgot the Baal Melas in surrounding schools and villages. And there is an energy project going ahead slowly but steadily to reduce the wood intake of the mess.

The mistri is making a drain and doesn't care how much cement goes down. So I have to go. Hopefully Jaya will make instant coffee at 2.30.

So guys the axe has fallen. The party is over. A war is starting they say in Central/ Eastern India after Kashmir and North East. Once again Arundhati Roy has hit the nail where it hurts the most. They say it is the latest must read book - something like listening to the grasshoppers.
(Sorry for not putting any commas. This one's comma key doesn't work)

In Memory of Tantiya Bhil

2009-02-12T16:18:00.001+05:30

The second annual Tantiya Mama Kabbadi Tournament was hosted by Adharshila last Sunday. Eight teams of adults from surrounding villages (including one from Adharshila) battled in the dust in three rounds to select the best. The winning team from Sawarda village won the first prize of Rs.2000/- and the Devli team got the second prize of Rs.1000/- .

Kabbadi's traces its long history back to royal armies that used the game to encourage unity and sportsmanship. Last year we agreed that those ideals were as relevant in our area today as at any time in history, and decided the tournament should be launched. Students were responsible for every aspect of the tournament's success, from organizing teams over a large area, to printing posters and, of course, cheering loudly. The tournament opened with the older children singing traditional songs while some of the younger children performed the legime dance from Maharashra. In the Tantiya tradition of slights of hand, two of the children even juggled.

Tantiya Bhil, or Tantiya Mama as he is better known around here, was a Bhil tribal leader from Neemar in the western parts of Madhya Pradesh who audaciously fought the British occupation of the area until he was finally captured and killed. Notorious for outwitting the officials behind him with disguises and mischief, Tantiya still lives on in legend. Tantiya is also known as the Indian Robin Hood for his habit of helping the poor with the loot of the rich.

The day was good in other ways too. The same evening our cow gave birth to a beautiful white calf. The children promptly named it Tantiya.

Help A Child Learn Computers?

2009-01-02T11:56:00.000+05:30

Dear friends,

As you know Adharshila has been striving to give high quality, relevant education to tribal children for the past eleven years.

Though we have managed significant progress in developing infrastructural facilities, constant electric supply continues to elude us. Due to this crippling problem, we are not able to do the documentation and curriculum development work we hope will make our approach permanent and shareable, even though we now have three people dedicated to the task .

Further, a part of the Adharshila dream is to give meaningful computer education to children. We have managed to procure computers and laptops from friends. After much effort, we have even had a transformer installed on the campus. This has ensured that we get good voltage. But this has still not solved the problem as electricity comes for a very limited time.

To overcome this hurdle we have decided to install two inverters. As you know we rely more on individual donations rather than institutional grants. For this project we are appealing to friends to help us buy the inverters.

The total cost for installing the two inverters of 1 kw each and batteries @ Rs.25,000.00/unit, will be Rs. 50,000.00.

We would be grateful for whatever contribution you make towards installing this facility. We ensure you that your support will go a long way in the development of these children and their community. You can address cheques to the address given above, or click on the lik below to donate online.

You can get more information on Adharshila from the links given below. We would be happy to answer any queries that you may have.

With regards
Amit and Jayashree
For
Adharshila Learning Centre

Two Days With Eames Bhai

2008-12-30T22:42:00.000+05:30

This post is about the visit of Eames Demetrios, a geographer at large.. He is a designer and also makes documentaries. The post has been written by children of Nile and Octopus groups at Adharshila - Imla, Chetana, Revali, Anil, Pushpendra, Sunil, Patidar, Madhosingh, Sarang, Mahesh, Krishna, Sunita, Suman, Lelsingh, Pavan.

On 16th November Eams Bhai came to our Learning Centre for two days from Los Angeles in North America. We met him for the first time. He came in a car from Indore.

He didn't speak Hindi. Eams Bhai spoke English very fast.

Eams Bhai brought pens and chocolates for us. On the first day he gave chocolates to children. The second day he gave pens to everybody. 'Eqlmundi Kirwela of Culev Larsze, Adharshila in Linear Sakad, MP. www.kcymearxphere.com ' - was engaved on the pens.

Eames Bhai told a long story in English which was translated for us by Amit Sir. The story was about Eqlmundi Kirwela of Culev Larsze. Eames Bhai had made this story. The story is based in South America and Adharshila.

The story is about an imaginary world called kcymearxphere. Culev Larsze rode on a saber toothed tiger. There was a brave girl named Segolin. Her pet lizard always sat on her shoulder.

In the story a tower was built in Sakad but later it was demolished. Culev Larsze goes to the Gods to stop the war between the believers and the non believers. The war was taking place in South America. The non believers were pushed to the Southern tip of S. America which was then separated by a sea by the Gods. But later on the war stopped due to Culev Larsze's intervention and every body was saved.

All the children liked the story. They were listening to the story very attentively. The story was very good.

Eams Bhai came to Adharshila to make it a part of his story, but he didn't write the whole story. To read further you have to go to the website - www.kcymearxphere.com.

On the second day he got five concrete slabs made in our Center. Three masons came from Sendhawa. All children helped in the work. Some children brought bricks, some concrete and others water and cement. Three slabs are on the boundary of the Center and two are in the middle. (The slabs represented the broken tower. )

He went to Sendhawa and bought oil paints for us. The children drew pictures of characters of the story on the slabs and Jaya Didi's house wall after listening to the story. They drew - Culev Larsze, Segolin, tower, lizard, bird, saber tooth tiger and the battle scene. Shewanta Didi and Dinesh Bhai wrote the story on the wall. First the children drew in their copies. When they showed the drawings to him he said, " awesome, coo(l)."

Eames Bhai had brought five cameras. He gave the camera to Ranjit Bhai, Prakash and Revali to take photos.

After the work finished all the children collected in the hall to sing and dance. Eams Bhai also came in the hall. He sang an English song - Boogie Woogie and the children danced to it. The children knew this song as some other visitors had taught them.

When Eames Bhai went back, all the children were sad.

Organic Tomatoes and Shit in a Bucket

2008-11-15T22:51:00.000+05:30

Post your summary here
What's on in Adharshila - Organic tomatoes, Election campaign, music group, Greeting cards, Shitting in a bucket...

So what are tomatoes doing in this blog ? these days many of us are working on the organic tomato/brinjal plot. Though due to my kidney stones i will not be able to eat any of this but it is great to wee them grow. The plants are almost two months old now. The best plant has about 60 tomatoes on it. We are feeding them Jeevamrit, mulch, ash and cow urine., and spraying pesticide made of five to six different types of leaves. We have been inspired by the Sharma farm near Amravati.
We have made three songs on elections. Some children have volunteered to go with the AMS who are trying to motivate people to focus on peoples issues and people's politics - whatever that may mean. The children will sing songs in the campaign. One of the songs is engineered on Vinay and Charul's song - mere voton ko ye jaanne ka hak re ... by the way we met them and heard them at a Narmada Andolan rally in Khandawa, where our Jamuna, Revali, Imla, Balsingh, Rakesh, Sarang and of course myself sang in front of a 25,000 strong audience. this was a first time performance for us and we are bent upon doing it again. the school kachaat band is in great josh and practices for two hours almost daily.
we have also got music and dance teachers who come every sunday - bothe bengali.
Children are making greeting cards again this year. Though cards are not in fashion but we insist on making them to keep the thumb from degenerating and to generate funds for our educational tour.
Shitting in the bucket - This is the latest. In an impromptu discussion in the tomato farm, this topic of uzing our shit for fertilizer came up. we have been thinking about this for a long time. but it was always on the lines of bio gas plants. We got books and a CD on dry latrines. This was all too technical for our primitive minds. Then i was reminded of a person in Maharshtra whome i had visited. He used to keep the bucket near his bed to emphasise the point that shit doesnt smell if covered properly. And i told this story to everybody and pat on.. Patidar and Sunil picked it up and promptly inaugerated the bucket toilet. it's been a week now. Inspired b this one volunteer from PRAVAH has also started digging a pit to shit in the bucket - quite poetic !

So long.
Amit

Shikshan Samwaad

2008-02-12T14:04:00.000+05:30

Shikshan Samwaad
3rd – 4th – 5th March 2008
Adharshila Learning Centre
Venue : Village Sakad, P.O. : Chatli, Via Sendhawa, District Badwani, Madhya Pradesh.

Dear friends

This year the Adharshila Learning Centre is completing ten years. We started working with children after working in an adivasi organisation for about fifteen years. The main aim of starting this experimental journey, was to see, what role can education play in people’s struggles and movements for social and political change.

During our work in the sangathan we experienced that the educated section always stayed away from the struggle. Most of the time their role was to oppose the struggle and not just stand aloof. We realized that during the 12 – 15 years of schooling they learnt to look down upon their society and became totally alienated from their people and society. In these years the system teaches them to leave whatever is theirs - clothes, language, knowledge, values etc. and dawn a new attire – they are told that this is the way to become civilized. There are very few exceptions whose hearts and head remain in the right place even after long years of schooling.

Can anything different be done in education ? Can the youth while studying, or after studying, contribute to the work of social change or is the role of education only to help them join the mainstream ? And is this the only way out for the poor ? While starting Adharshila, there were many questions like these in our minds.

Should the peoples’ organizations concerns about the issues of education be limited to demands for making govt. schools run more efficiently and making the govt. system more strong? Or can we go beyond this and start thinking about strategies of transferring the thoughts and ideas born out of struggle, to the next generation ?

Every economic and political system designs an education system to serve it’s interests. What is the design for education of children in the minds of people / organisations who are engaged in struggles for a more just and equal society ? Can education play a role in realizing the dream of a just, humane and more egalitarian society, a new human being ? Or will the market eat up all the educated ?

We have organised a three day dialogue on education - Shikshan Samwaad – to understand, in depth, the linkages of education and social/political change and the emergent possibilities for groups involved in people’s struggles.

The sessions have been broadly divided in the following manner. This is not final. You can give suggestions as soon as you get this.

· The first day will go in understanding the viewpoint and work, regarding children and youth, of the various social/ political movements of the past, in India and elsewhere – Dalit, Gandhian, Socialist and the left movements. We are trying to call people involved in these movements or people who have studied these.

· The second and third days will be devoted to understanding, what role can education play in the long term struggle of social/ political change. In these sessions the main players will be the leaders of the various struggling groups/ organisations.

· If it is felt that there is a need to take up education as a proactive agenda, then the concluding sessions will be devoted to thinking of various strategies to do this and ways to deal with the various challenges that confront us in doing this.

So friends, come prepared to battle with questions related to education, for three days. You can bring documents, posters, pamphlets, books, films or anything which you would like to share with others.

We request and insist at the same time that you please take time off from your busy schedule for this dialogue, and spend time with us from 3rd to 5th March. We request you to reach here by 2nd evening. Feel free to inform and bring other interested people with you.

Please inform us by phone of email.

Adharshila Learning Centre, Badwani, M.P.
Adivasi Mukti Sangathan, Badwani, M.P.
Manthan Learning Centre, Rajasthan
Sobran Smruti Shikshapeeth, Jharkhand
Rani Kajal JeevanShala, Jhabua, M.P.
SRUTI, Delhi

Contact –
Jayashree – Amit at 09425981606 or email at adharshila.learningcentre@gmail.com

Arvind Anjum at 09431113667 Devendra – Sudhi at 09413103171
Bijoy - 09425364761 Kemat Singh – 09424005490
Rohit Jain – 011 26964946

Children's Science Congress

2007-12-27T07:18:00.000+05:30

PROJECT EXTRACT FOR NATIONAL CHILDREN’S SCIENCE CONGRESS

FROM FOOD INSECURITY ( MALNUTRITION)
TO
BIODIVERSITY --
A JOURNEY OF DISCOVERIES

(Under the Sub Title – Bio Diversity in Man made and Land Ecosystems )

Team : Suresh Dudve – Team Leader
Majali J.J.
Seetaram Dudve
Deewansingh Brahmane
Suresh Barole

The team was supported by almost 60 students of Adharshila Learning Centre, in the field surveys. In a sense the whole Centre was immersed in Bio Diversity.

Guide : Jayashree

Institution : Adharshila Learning Centre

Area of Study : Four villages namely – Sakad, Chatli, Kunjari and Merkhedi – of Newali Block, or Barwani district in western Madhya Pradesh. The district is a predominantly adivasi district ( 78%). It is situated in the Satpuda range bordering Maharashtra.

Importance and Relevance of the Topic

India is striving to stand amongst the leaders in the world community, but malnutrition is mocking us in the face. The fact that 40 – 45 % of the country’s children are malnutritioned is raising serious questions on the claims to development.Our strides in space are of no meaning if our children are malnutritioned, women are anemic. Something is gravely wrong somewhere.
Most children who have taken part in this project have suffered malnutrition in their childhood or seen there kith and kin die due to malnutrition. Majali’s eyesight is seriously impaired due to chronic Vitamin A deficiency during childhood. Malnutrition is very close to the hearts of the children.

Various surveys have shown that 58% - 60 % children of Madhya Pradesh are malnutritioned, much higher than the National average. Most of these are children of farmers and laborers.

The Journey of Discovery.

The study is based on the following sources –
Interviews of about 50 – 60 old people. Interviews of old people from outside the four villages were also recorded.
Household surveys in the four villages.
Books and journals were also used to understand the issues in depth.
We took advise from doctors, professors, organic farmers.
Some friends helped us search the internet. Due to electricity problems we could not do this ourselves.

Last year while learning about malnutrition and other health problems we surveyed the children of surrounding villages, taking their weights. We were shocked to see the extent of malnutrition. We saw children of 3 - 4 years who could not stand up. There were many children with Grade IV malnutrition. Many children from this group died after our survey. We reported this in papers and also to local officials.

On the 15th August we took a pledge to remove malnutrition and free the farms from market dependency. We used the opportunity of the Children’s Science Congress to go into the reasons of such wide spread malnutrition in our area, in depth.

We began by interviewing the old people of the villages to find out what they thought about the whole issue. About 50 old people were interviewed. Almost all of them were of the opinion that the quality of food had gone down in terms of quantity, quality and variety. They were the generation brought up on milk, ghee and curd. Even the poor in the village got a share of all this and at least pure butter milk was in abundance for everybody.

They also talked about the increased dependence on cash which was forcing everybody into cash crops and making farming totally dependent on the market. Farming which was once supposed to be an enterprise where - in people enjoyed independence, was now totally at the mercy of moneylenders and market prices.

They were convinced that due to the use of chemical fertilizers and hybrid seeds, which were promoted by Govt. agencies in the beginning, had led to loss of fertility of the soil.It was difficult for our young minds to digest what these old people were telling us. We were almost convinced that the adivasis of our area were going ahead on the development road – what about all the motorcycles, tractors, threshers, tube wells, pumps and irrigated fields, and quintals of cotton and soybean that we were selling by tractors, that we have been seeing since childhood ?

We undertook about 15 – 16 household surveys to validate these claims. A lot of food availability surveys were conducted. After these surveys we realized that behind the seeming prosperity there was severe food insecurity.

We found that -

There were about 120 types of food items which people ate of which now only 36 types were available. Most of the fruits, leafy vegetables, gums, honey, meat etc. available in the past have never been seen by the present generation. All these provided rare minerals, proteins, fats.
In most households only 7.14 kg pulses/person/year was available as against the required 22 – 27 kg/ person/ year( ICDS) .

Availability of milk and milk products had gone down drastically. Out of the 73% people who had got milk in there childhood only 17.39% are getting it now.

Where did all this vanish and why ?

We talked to people about this. About 40 years ago the govt. started promoting chemical fertilizers and hybrid seeds. The forests also started depleting about this time due to the pressure of urbanisation and population. Since then it has been a down slide. As dependency on the market increased people were forced to go in for cash crops. Cash crops meant loans at interests as high as 150%, dependency on the market, monoculture and depletion of the soil fertility. Before they realized people were in debt but started enjoying playing with cash. To repay loans more cash crops. This becomes a vicious cycle.

Also the mainstreaming pressure ( including our education system) forced the people to reject their traditional knowledge. They were made to lose faith in their knowledge systems and believe in the ideas being promoted by the market and Govt. agencies in tandem.

The main lesson that we learnt at the end of the exercise were that –

· Due to the depletion of farm and forest biodiversity about 54% of our food items have gone.
· Of the 65 items that we got now only 9 remain, i.e. an 87% decrease.
· Now 75% of our food items come from the farm.

These food crops are fast losing out to cash crops as market dependency is increasing in all aspects of our lives from clothes to health.

· Coarse grain and millets like bhadi which provided food security in droughts or scanty rainfall years are almost on the verge of vanishing.

· The quality of the soil has depleted, leading to loss of nutritional content of food.

· Cash crops now occupy the most fertile lands, leaving second grade land for food crops. Wheat is replacing traditional grains where irrigation's is there.

· The diversity in crops ensured that some crops will grow well in spite of changes in monsoons. Now with single crops occupying full fields the bad effects of erratic monsoons is more pronounced.

Conclusions

The loss of bio diversity has led to severe food insecurity. The quality, quantity and variety of food has decreased.
Adivasis and other small and marginal farmers are at the mercy of the market and dole provided by Govt. agencies.
If nothing is done then the future is bleak for farmers.

What is to be done ?

A strong campaign to save the farms from the clutches of the market and make the farmer independent, by promoting natural and organic farming techniques.

Fight malnutrition by making people aware about proper diet and importance of growing diverse food crops.

Awareness building programme in schools.

Incorporating related topics in the school curriculum.

Regenerate and save existing forest areas.

Re establish the self esteem of the farmer and adivasis. Revive useful traditional farming practices.

What we are doing ?

Natural farming on our campus.

School awareness programme.

Motivating families who have malnutritioned children to give special food preparations and grow vegetables. Children learnt to make sattoo and even gave it to many families.

Spreading the word through Baal – Melas.

Continue our research on this and related topics.

Motivate children and adults to adopt natural farming practices

Bio Diversity Project

2007-12-27T07:10:00.000+05:30

Bio diversity Project selected to represent Madhya Pradesh in the National Children’s Science Congress

This is a first for us and all of us are very kicked about it. The science project submitted at the National Children’s Science Congress got selected to represent MP at the National Level conference. Right now the children are in Baramati, Maharashtra participating in the event.

As part of the Adharshila curriculum children do a lot of village surveys every year. One of the surveys done last year was to study the extent of malnutrition in surrounding villages.
This year we tried to go into the causes of such widespread malnutrition and we discovered that besides other things one of the main reason for this was the loss of bio-diversity in the area.
We submitted this report and vow ! the project got selected and now will be presented at the National Children’s Science Congress being held in Baramati, Maharashtra. The project was named – ‘ From Food Insecurity (malnutrition) to Bio-diversity – A Journey of Discovery ’

Another great thing is that this project has also been selected to be displayed at the National Science Congress at Vishakapattanam which is a conference of actual scientists (mainstream definition). This is a bigger honour because only one or two projects from each state are selected for this – projects which are of national importance and which researchers can pick up for furthur research.

About the project

About 50 elders were interviewed at first and asked questions related to farming practices, loans, quality of life etc. Invariably they said that the quality, quantity and variety of food has decreased now. They were the generation brought up on milk and fat( ghee) and now they lust to see even buttermilk, which they used to throw or give to cattle.

The main reasons for this decline, according to them were –

1. Depletion of forests and grazing grounds
2. Cash crops were replacing food crops.
3. Loss of nutrients in the soil

To check out what these oldies were saying, children did about 15 different types of surveys and found that most of what they were saying was true. Due to the pressure of cash economy farmers were forced to go in for cash crops which has resulted in loss of soil fertility, debt traps, suicides, loss of diversity in food crops etc. All this has resulted in chronic aneamia and malnutrition in children ( and women too) – the most vulnerable section of society.
The findings of the children are also corroborated by National Surveys where in we find that states famous for productivity and farming have high incidence of aneamia in women. Almost 50% – 60% children in Madhya Pradesh are underweight.

It was found that high chemical inputs, hybrid seeds and cash crops started started roughly 20 – 30 years ago ( which is roughly the time when the so called Green Revolution was introduced in our country ).

At the end of the study it was evident that eye catching and vote fetching social security schemes like anganwadis and mid day meals were not the solution to malnutrition. The solution lies at a deeper level of changing farm practices to non chemical and non market driven and market independent farming practices.

Side Effects

The children got a lot of exposure to whats happening in other ‘ big and good’ schools. Where many participants were son’s and daughters of teachers. How the world looks at tribals – poor, to be pitied, don’t know hindi, hey they are wearing clothes like us ! & Well you got selected only because you are tribals etc.

They just can't believe that these children have merit and they can be better than the best.

And this is what Adharshila Learning Centre is all about. To bring out the best in humanity

Wanted

……a GPRS enabled mobile to access internet in Adharshila.
Anybody discarding his/her old one is free to give it to Adharshila.
You can even loan it for some time, say six months or an year and have it back.

Math Vaato Insaan ko

2007-12-05T13:32:00.000+05:30

We in Adharshila sing songs every day morning when we assemble for the school to start & also when we disperse. This is one of them. This song was composed about 18 years back by Vinay Mahajan. In the spirit & the hope for a secular future for our children..........

Math vaato Insaan ko

mandir masjid, girjadhar ne, vaat liya bhagwan ko
dharti vaati, sagar vaata, mat vaato Insaan ko

Hindu kehta mandir mera, mandir mera dhaam hai
Muslim kehta mecca mera, Allah ka imaan hai
dono ladte, lad lad marte, ladte ladte khatham huye
dono' ne ek duje pe na jane kya kya julam kiye
kiska he yeh maksad, kiski chaal chaal hai yeh jaan lo
dhart vaati.....

Neta ne satta ki khatir, komvaad se kaam liya
dharam ke thekedar se milkar logon ko nakaam kiya
bhai bante thukade-thukade mai neta ka hai imaan bada
vote mile aur neta jeeta shoshan ko adhaar mila
vakth naahi beeta hai ab bhi vakth ki kimat jaan lo
dhart vaati......

Prajatantre me praja ko loote, kaisi yeh sarkar hai
laati, goli, ishwar, allah yeh saare hathiyar hai
milke raho aur inse lado tum, inse ladna sheek lo
hakk hai tumhara chaiin se jeena, apne hakk ko jeeth lo
agar ho thang shaitani se tho, khatam karo shaitan ko
dharti vaati.......

desh ki janata bhook se marti dekho brastachar yeh
berojgari, tekedari, mahagai ki maar yeh
dharam, dharam chilane vaale, khoon bahayi desh me
shaitanano dere dale insaanonoko besh me
kaise kahenge saare jahan se accha hindustan ko
dharti vaati......

Invisible support cast

2007-11-20T18:51:00.000+05:30

A member of the invisible support cast working really hard & helping us with this blog, installing the "read more code". Infact i met him through blogosphere, some similar musical interests. But it was just great for him to come over & help us, Thank you Manu.

He can be seen at http://www.codepencil.com/ & http://www.knowyourraga.com/

Mahalaxmi has a few things to share

2007-11-20T07:22:00.000+05:30

Mahalaxmi from Chennai was a Management Graduate from Symbiosis, Pune. Unlike others of her age and background she chose to work for the education of children who were not fortunate to get good schooling, through Akanksha, an NGO working in Pune and Mumbai. She stayed in Adharshila for One and a half month and put her heart and soul in teaching children. She also helped in developing the math curriculum for the 1st level.

Here is what she has to say..........

All characters and events mentioned here are real and any resemblance to fiction is purely coincidental and unintentional. This village looks like a beautiful dream and it feels good to stop somewhere and look around you. And the people as we call them- are kamaal ke bande- for you hardly expect to ever meet people who seem to have it all figured out in their head- who have so much clarity and then you chance upon people here and you wish you would reach that stage soon too.

I heard of Adharshila through a friend who was also planning to visit this organisation. I looked up their website and was quite interested in experiencing this place for it promised a chance to see alternative education.

When I spoke to Amit from Pune to ask him what to get with us- his answer interested me. He said - bas tum khudi aa jao- just bring yourself. I understand that better now - this is a place where all you need to do is to allow yourself to experience, learn new things and question and challenge your persepctive and view on things. You immerse yourself completely and allow yourself to learn from everthing and everyone around you. Be ready to question and challenge your beliefs and ideas on what is good education, what is the real issue for the problems that we see and many things that you thought defined you.

One of the first things Jayshree and Amit asked us was what were we passionate about- what could we teach and what did we want to learn? There is this huge writing on a wall that says – seekhne ki jagah-place for learning- in Bareli- and that is the most appropriate description of this place.

I think staying in Adharshila is a must for anybody who is thinking about education – alternative or mainstream or any other.

Things that I have learnt:

Learning is not restricted by time or space

The fascinating part about real learning is that you are never either just a teacher or just a student- there are no fixed roles that you need to fit into for you shall be both and there is value in both

Waking up early may/may not be a virtue but staying up late is- for that is when you can have the most interesting conversations with Amit and Jayshree- and if you do nothing else but just this you may still leave richer in your thinking process.

The kids will accept you into their fold very easily and make you feel really comfortable

That I love feeling I am cared for and people are concerned about my well being when they are worried about whether or not I eat enough, make me some nice hot tea when I am ill

It is not too hard to laugh at yourself and your ideologies and I may be very beneficial

Family feeling is not defined by blood relations and you feel you are in the midst of family when you have a group of people that you eat, cook, chat and share with

Picking every grain of urad that’s fallen on the ground made me realise what it means to have a bowl of dal on my plate

Beautiful sunrise and sunset is not to be found just in paintings and romantic movies but also in real life.

You can see a full sun and a beautiful moon both at the same time.

A mirror is a non necessity- it only creates self obsession

Running water, attached toilet bath , 24- hour electricity are all a privilege and we must be able to appreciate it.

Even though in some ways this seems very unlike the world I have known but in many ways it does not seem too different and I feel like I could fit in.

The difference between jowar and bajra

That khatpuliya – a red flowering plant has a nice sour/tangy taste

Many types of weaving and other craft Jaya & my teachers were extremely patient with me even though I made many mistakes and asked a thousand questions- for the first time I felt like I could learn craft work

How to turn the soil with a phawda and gheti

What mulching means and how it is done

Simplicity does not mean compromising on great learning resources like a well stocked library, a great craft room, a TV and DVD player, a telescope, a variety of games and a few computers.

The main role of a teacher here is that of a facilitator for learning here is a process of experiencing and experimenting.

This school is almost a true representation of life- as in how differen people enter our lives for different time durations and we learn from each one of them somthiing that is important and they learn from us what they need to

About nitrogen fixing and how it can be done

Jute pods make an amazing muscial instrument for they sound like ghungroo

Being with kids and playing games with them and telling and listening stories is what I enjoy the most

3 Bareli songs

2 Hindi songs

How to sow garlic

Many new games

That palak and onion too have seeds to be sown

That I actually enjoy cooking and trying out new things if I have someone to cook with and talk to while cooking

Healthy food, Shramdaan and Sunday walks make for the best way to gain good weight.

Note: This list is not comprehensive.

Life at Adharshila

2007-11-20T05:37:00.000+05:30

The full post with more intricate details & more snaps can be read at http://sameersampat.blogspot.com/

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Been at Adharshila for 6 weeks and they have already started poking fun of my pensiveness here (they also sell these pretty cool greeting cards as a fundraiser that you can see and read about here) There is a lot to write about and not much time on the net, so I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

My Daily Schedule (though schedules at Adharshila can be changed at any minute for a variety of reasons)

5:00am-7:00am Yoga and meditation in a most serene environment. Its worth being here just for these 2 hours everday, starting meditation under a blanket full of stars and ending yoga as the sun rises. Some of the kids who have the motivation to wake-up early do so. Oddly enough, its a different group of 3 or 4 everyday.

7:00am-8:00am Teach a math class to kids studying for the 10th standard exams.

8:00am-10:00am Farming time! I can't say that I have mastered anything, but I have dabbled in a few aspects of farming. I've been involved in mulching, planting, adding fertilizer (made of plants, i.e. natural) and picking vegetables. I've taken to the ghethi (pick axe - pictured below) as it feels like productive work that also helps build muscles (which I need). Much of my gethi work is towards some pretty interesting experiments we are trying to level our plots and run-off areas to maximize soil and water retention.

10:00am-11:00am Teach a math class for kids in the 6th or 7th to boost their confidence with numbers. I play alot of math games with the kids, it makes for a nice "rest" after the work in the farm.

11:00am-1:00pm Cook and eat lunch. I have the option of eating in the mess with the kids, but I am keen on learning how to cook, so Amit and Jayshree suggested that the best way to learn is just jump straight into it and cook your own meals. Having to sustain on what what Mahalaxmi and I cook has been great motivation to improve our cooking skills. Our lunch consists of daal and rice. Dinner of roti and shubjzi. I've gotten decent at making those 4 items, although part of the reason that our food tastes good to us is that we usually end up pretty hungry by meal times. The biggest kick for me is being able to go out to our farm and pick some fresh palak (spinach) to put into our daal!

1:00pm-2:15pm Teach the whole 6th and 7th standard math. Over this past week this group has been put into self-learning mode. Basically each student was asked what they wanted to learn and they individually came up with a list of things like juggling, about America, music, organic farming, etc. Later they were guided to create a timetable for their da so that they can learn what the set out to learn. Eventually they are to check-in with one of the adults update us on their progress.

A few things we have kept "compulsory" for these kids, one of which is my math class, with is now shortened to 1:00-1:45p. But most kids had math on their list and I think they enjoy the class. Somedays after my class, Jayshree teaches a class on the basics of organic farming to the kids interested which I sit in on.

2:25pm-3:30pm Break, shower, wash clothes, clean room, etc.

3:30p-4:30p Teach math to the student teachers. The older kids at Adharshila have a lot of responsibility and really do a good job taking leadership of this place. Most older kids are teaching the younger while also independantly studying (i.e. self-stuyding) for their own exams. They also look over much of the day-to-day maintainence of the ashram. I'm pretty impressed by much of this group.

4:30pm-5:30pm Play time for the students. I've used this time to play cricket, read, talk with folks or learn some Bareli songs from the kids. With cricket, the kids have my weakness. I can't hit the "low ball", a ball that bounces in a patch of dirt and thus doesn't come high off the ground. Def. a speciality ball only used on our pitch. Last week I taugt the kids a modified version of baseball which they thought was odd but enjoyed.

5:30p-6:30p Shramdaan - all the kids at ashram are involved in some sort of physical work, generally cleaning or farming. I usually join in on work based on how tired I am. If I am looking for a workout, I try to pick axe. Otherwise its usually picking leaves for mulching.

6:30p - onwards Cook and eat dinner. A few nights we have used this time to have meetings to discuss math curriculum that we hope to build over the next year. Otherwise, if I have energy, I'll engage in conversations with people at the ashram, Jayshree, Amit, Mahalaxmi, Badri Bhai, Devika Ben, Yatin, the kids. Sometimes these conversations take pretty philisophcial turns and end past midnight, usually because I end up questioning the heck out of the people here, esp. Amit and Jayshree, mainly for my own clarity on the direction of my life. Luckily the seem to not mind me keeping them up. At least they haven't said anything yet ;-)

And to end it, I hadn't shaved for the past 6 weeks (out of laziness) and grew a pretty gnarely beard.

Greeting Cards

2007-11-11T11:08:00.000+05:30

Dear friends

Zindabad and a very Happy Diwali.

Once again, New Year and Christmas are approaching. The children are gearing up to make new greeting cards as part of their craft activities. Many of you who have been buying cards will say, "Not again" but we persist :-)

Craft is vital to the Adharshila learning curriculum as we strongly believe that working with our hands and prdoucing something is a very satisfying and creative learning experience. This satisfaction and creativity is the central idea which we would like to promote in our learning programme. Besides this is also a very important educational activity and important for the development of the brain. (remember the hand played a very big role in the evolutionary development of the brain).

It is this belief in working with the hand that keeps us at these little activities like making cards, weaving, craft, farming etc.

We know and have been told by many that in the age of email and sms greeting cards have become redundant.

The funds raised through the sale of cards are used for educational tours. The children just love travelling. In 2006, we visited an organic farm and an NGO working in the health field in Gujarat. Both these places were very inspiring. The children also had fun in the sea in Dandi.They went to Pavagarh and Toran maal - two hill very old hill top shrines in the Satpuras. We saw how hand made paper is made and also a leprosy patients hospital. We also visited our sister school in Kakrana on the banks of the Narmada. This village was submerged partially in the Narmada Dam.

So once again we appeal to you, not just to help raise resources for the children's educational tour but to promote this thought and save the hand from becoming redundant. If you or anyone you know would like to wish to buy the greeting cards that our children have made, then please let us know at the earliest.

We hope to receive your support irrespective of mainstream trends.

Monthly update from Adharshila

2007-11-05T16:56:00.000+05:30

A Traveller

Narendra Patil, going on his bike from Leh to Bangalore, dropped in. He’s an old friend from the Attha days. The children were more interested in his heavy Royal Enfeild bike rather than his talk. He stayed with us for 4 days. Most of the time we were discussing our lives in the past 18 years. We met after 18 years – or so !!! He also showed children how to juggle with three balls.

And Two Volunteers

Mahalaxmi and MBA from Symbiosis, Pune and Sameer and Electrical Engineer from the USA reached the same day. While Laxmi is a teaching enthusiast, Sameer seems to be looking for answers to deeper questions related to education and life in general. Right now they are helping in teaching English, Math, teacher training and curriculum development. Sameer is learning to cook and works on the organic farm. Laxmi is learning weaving and also works on the farm.

A Trip to an Organic Farm

Jayashree with 8 children, and Badri bhai, went to see the farm of Mr. Sharma in Maharashtra, who has recently received the President’s Award for high yield through organic farming techniques. The team came back inspired and immediately set to work on the farm. We learnt to see levels and make contours. Sharma produces about 3 tonne vegetables on an acre, in the full year – which is a lot, to say the least. We will be happy if we get a ton.

Watering the Trees

The whole Centre is busy watering the trees and vegetable plots. Remember our resolve of planting and nurturing trees to make our mess fuel self reliant.

Electricity

The fun days are over. As soon as people have started threshing and preparing their fields for the winter crop, the voltage has dropped to candlelight levels. Those who remember their school physics can appreciate the measurement of light in candles only when they have visited Adharshila in this season. We are desperately running after people to get a DP installed. We realised that inspite of thousands of hits that one gets of searching ‘alternative energy’ and Govt. depts. And NGO’s and elite institutions like IITs there is no viable alternative as yet to the State Electricity Board which relies on Dams, Nuclear Plants and the like. So what is to be done –Alternative Life style lovers ? Any body who has great ideas except saying why do you need electricity, is welcome to help.

Science
The children are busy preparing for an Astronomy Olympiad held at the district level.
One group is doing a project to find out the ill effects of the loss of bio diversity, in agriculture.

Natueco farming

2007-10-29T15:54:00.000+05:30

Energy, Water and Natueco Farming-an interesting relationship

This is a hypothesis that Natueco Farming has a strong correlation with how we use energy and water as a resource rather than how we do farming. We believe that the present day conventional farming may be productive and high yielding in the short run but in terms of water and energy use, it is highly inefficient and it is this inefficiency that is the root cause of all problems associated with farming in the long run. Example of Punjab is the most relevant.
Background

We define productivity of a farm (called ‘Visible Productivity’) as drymass/ per hectare which is a combined effect of ‘Primary Productivity’ and ‘Secondary Productivity’.‘Primary Productivity’ by definition is the productive efficiency of land without any external input while ‘Secondary Productivity’ is defined as the incremental productivity achieved over and above the primary because of external inputs like water(brought in from outside), fertilizers, pesticides, transportation etc. Secondary therefore is a multiplier of the primary.

The Metrics

‘Primary Productivity’ is measured in terms of output efficiency (drymass/ per hectare/KL of water consumed) while ‘Visible Productivity’ is measured in terms of gross output.(drymass/per hectare). Hence it is very much possible that while ‘Visible Productivity’ seems to be going up, the underlying ‘Primary Productivity’ is going down sharply.

Today’s Scenario

So far all our efforts have been to increase the ‘Visible Productivity’ by enhancing the ‘Secondary Productivity’ which in itself is perfectly sensible thing to do. We have so far got phenomenal results indeed. In fact the so called ‘Green Revolution’ has been all about increasing our ‘Visible Productivity’ through enhancing ‘Secondary Productivity’. Example of Punjab is the most glaring case of what we are talking. The enhanced ‘Secondary Productivity’ has given us a false sense of pride that ‘Visible Productivity’ is up. However, the reality was that the ‘Primary Productivity’ had been steadily going down all these years and we were unaware because our focus was just measuring the ‘Visible Productivity’.

The Problem

In the beginning the total ‘Visible Productivity’ can be easily increased by external inputs and all seems to be going good. However, over time an effort to increase ‘Secondary Productivity’ impairs our farm’s ‘Primary Productivity’ and we start seeing a decline in the ‘Visible Productivity’ even though external inputs are the same.

Our Hypothesis

Natueco methodology is a way to enhance the ‘Primary Productivity’ of a given land. In other words, it is a way to increase the drymass output per hectare per kilolitre of water consumed.

We believe this is a very subtle but an extremely important point because the Sun’s energy can only be harvested optimally if the drymass output is maximized while minimizing the water consumption.

We believe that sustainable farming is all about the ‘Primary Productivity’ never ever being allowed to decline.

We also believe that if land is harvested at its most optimal levels of ‘Primary Productivity’, it WILL give maximum yield per hectare FOR EVER at the least input cost! So even financially and business wise it makes sense to protect the ‘Primary Productivity’. This has not been happening because to increase “Primary Productivity’, the multinationals don’t sell anything and therefore there is very little money made by the traders, politicians and businessmen!
To increase ‘Primary Productivity’ we just need an aware and alert farmer-called Natueco Farmer.

Productive, Fertile & Living Soil

2007-10-03T15:46:00.000+05:30

1. Nature’s Soil Building.

1.1) Nature has built, various types of soil, for various types of plants, our farm soil is one of it. Mangrove plants grow even in salty seawater, near the seashore. Even dirty gutter & pond soil, has wild mixed greenery, growing in it.

1.2) The green patches on both sides of the tarred city roads, or the greenery that appears, on vast waste lands, after the first rains, or the wild weeds growing in our farms, or on the untilled land on, both the compound sides, of our farm, all invite us to observe, to understand, & to follow these nature’s schemes of building soils.

1.3) The first step in nature’s soil building is greening, with whatever mix of seeds, or spores of algae’s, mosses & weeds that germinate and get hold of the soil and create a cover by holding the soil beneath & creating micro climate near its spread as well as preventing rain water erosion & run off flow.

1.4) If we begin to observe the whole process, the growth of these patches of new soil on the road side, is season wise, when weeds, grasses, bushes etc, grow, mature, produce seeds & die. Some parts of these are from fibrous stems, when they are fully mature. Some have shallow rooting, whereas some have deep roots. In the next rains, these organic things that are trampled get decomposed & semi powdered.

More over it is interesting to observe, when rains comes out of seasons, occasionally some seeds germinate & grow for some time & as these rains cannot provide water for full growth, the plants of different stages of growth die, & gradually, a new type of soil mix, of well composted organic material, grows above the original layer of soil. If we scrape such soil or pull out some half dead grassy clumps, when the soil is wet, we can see this, above & under ground a layer of newly formed soil, as well as the soil crumbs selected by the roots of the grasses and other weeds growing at that place.

1.5) The other way, nature builds the soil is to carry by rain water topsoil from the hills & grounds to riverbeds & deposit it there.

1.6) All types of animal wastes, that gets decomposed (in full oxygen supply) or rotten (in
In-complete oxygen supply) ultimately adds to the composition of the new soil.

1.7) Winds, rains, temperature, light, constant water flow etc create very small mineral particles from various rocks that we call dust, or clayey components & these particles have a very high surface, so even a handful of such soil can have thousands of sq. ft. of area. We can show mathematically that even one cubic feet of soil of such micro, micro size can have more than six acres of area between the particles. More over many rocks also gets decomposed & in the end break into powder.

1.8) Though, there are plants that can grow in salty soils, or in soils having very low level of moisture in it, as also in stagnant waters, or even in polluted pond waters, most of the green vegetation prefer soil that we call farm soil, or garden soil, or better still nursery soil.

Let us study next, what are the components of a good nursery soil, we will then study, how to build such soils, from our neighbourhood resources, only by following nature’s schemes of building new soils.

2. Components of good nursery soil.

2.1) A good nursery soil has a structure, or the body of the soil, that gives it, its form, tilth, texture, air holding & water holding capacity at best (optimum level).

2.2) The body of the soils, decides the root flush in it. It is the root flush in the soil, in the first phase of plants growth that decides its health & vigour. Unless, we build the body of the soil, properly, the growth of the plant will be affected badly, in its early stage of growth. So by observing, the growth of the plant, in its early stage of growth, we can help the plant, by providing good nursery soil. The name nursery soil has come mostly because of this characteristic of the soil. We call this component, as the productivity of the nursery soil. In such soil, if a plant is growing in a small size bag of ½ to 1 litre, we can only see roots & roots every where in that soil, if we remove the bag after 15 to 20 days of the plants growth.

So, to test the productivity of our soil, take a sample of such soil, fill a ½ to 1 litre size plastic bag (open at both ends) by that soil. The soil should be wet, but not sticking to our palm. Press the soil well and sow one or two seeds of Groundnut & observe the flush of roots in it after 15 days of germination of the seed. Remember only fresh seeds of Groundnut germinate, otherwise sow one or two seeds of Red Pumpkin or Cucumber or any legume seed.

2.3) The measure of soil is made in volume (buckets, baskets etc) & not by weight. Good nursery soil has equal part by volume, one the mineral part of the soil & two the organic part of the soil.

The mineral part comes from the rock particles, while the organic part comes from well composted fibres of any plant material (grain covers, pod covers, stem fibres, dried thick leaves, petioles, straw, veins in leaves, fibrous mature roots of all plants, especially of grasses & grain plants, bagasse of sugar canes, rasped wood flakes, leaflets of Coconut & other similar trees, all types of straws, Jowar & Maize stalks etc, fibres of Coconut fruits, husks of tender Coconut fruits etc).

2.4) The fibres of plant materials, are made of lignin. And when these are soaked in water & have 90% humidity these are decomposed by the micro flora in the air & their dead bodies that remain afterwards is called lignoprotiens. When the fibres in animal dung get fully decomposed it is called humus. These are also the dead bodies of the micro flora that consume the dung. The dead bodies of micro flora are made up mostly of their cell walls. These are semi-celluletic & protenious compound called “Chiten” & and are semi-mucous in material.

2.5) Humus & Lignoprotiens is the part of the nursery soil that builds stable productivity of any soil. Different types of fibres require different treatments, to get them decomposed. Some get decomposed in a short span of 3 to 6 weeks, while others take even years to get fully decomposed. But these give a longer stable form, to the nursery soil, than those materials, which get easily decomposed.

To build good nursery soil, one must get well acquainted with all this insight, as well with proper skill, to achieve the desired productivity in the soil.

2.6) The second component of nursery soil is its fertility level or the plant nutrient status. One must understand first, that most of the plant parts are made up of carbohydrates. These carbohydrates are made of Carbon & Water molecules.

This carbon comes from the Carbon dioxide in the air & the Water comes from the soil water. Thus most of the dry weight, of any plant material has very little of the nutrient parts of the soil. If we burn any plant material completely, the white ash that remains contains compounds of various nutrients taken from the soil (except nitrogen taken from the soil). Generally this white ash is only 6% to 10% of the dry weight burnt. Moreover half of this weight is of Silica & Calcium. So, to grow healthy vigorous plants in any nursery soil, only a very small fraction of these active nutrients are needed. These come from the activated mineral parts of the soil.

2.7) The Humus & the Ligno-protein part of nursery soil helps to preserve these nutrients readily available to plant roots by buffer action. So that these are not leached or get fixed.

There are about 20 nutrient elements the plant needs of which some are taken from air & water molecules & the rest from the soil, by ion exchange method. We will learn these details in our venture notes on nutrient needs of the plants.

2.8) It is known that the tender parts of any growing plant contains Boron, Zinc & Phosphorous, while green mature leaves provide Nitrogen, Magnesium, Copper, Iron, Sulphur & large amounts of Potash, while dried & then fallen leaves of any plant gives Calcium, Silica, Boron & Manganese. Thus by making ligno-protein of dried leaves & dried other parts of plants, we can give these nutrients to the soil. But if we compost the tender, mature & old parts of any green vegetation, we will be providing proper nutrient levels to our nursery soil, by greening the soil repeatedly & returning these parts, by composting or by making slurry, or by making dry powder, or by steaming these and adding these for early composting etc.

2.9) One interesting thing to note is most of the seeds contain all the nutrients including such as Molybdenum, Cobalt etc that are needed only in very small quantities. This is the reason why oil cakes from oil seeds as also poultry dropping from grain mash etc contain all nutrients in very concentrated proportions.

2.10) Above all the top layer of any soil crushed under heavy traffic as also top soil kept open to high temperature of the sun in Summer time is activated mineral soil. The sweepings from our house hold and from animal sheds contain all our daily wear & tear of our enormous skin area, even our hair are also very good sources of nutrients for nursery soils.

It can be shown that in one tier system of plant growth, very good nursery soil can produce at the most 2 kg of dry matter in 10 sq. ft. (one sq. metre) area in 100 hundred days for C3 group of plants & 3kg for C4 group of plants. So accordingly 10 sq. ft area of soil will need nutrient level of about the ash component of this matter. We can provided these by various means of greening & ashing methods from various types of plants growing in the compound or near by, or by various processes of mixed greening & recycling of the wastes of the biomass actually growing in the soil.

But the real source of such constant nutrient level maintenance is to make the soil living soil.

2.11) The third important component of good nursery soil is that it should be: living soil.

In that soil various types of micro flora must get established. This can be done by having a mixed sowing of grain seeds, oil seeds, pulse seeds as well as weeds and seeds of such plants as marigold etc. Even Parthenium weed is a great asset to provide a proper living space/place for the micro flora, near the root zone of these plants or on the nodules growing on the roots etc. They then extract other nutrients for their growth from the mineral soil in the root zone. In one day many colonies grow & die & release enough nutrients.

2.12) One more point which one will learn is what we call pH or the type of soil pH tells us whether the soil is acidic, neutral, alkaline or salty. If we build our soil with care & proper mix-up & processes of greening the pH will always be near neutral or slightly acidic or alkaline. We can shift this pH by adding humus of lignoprotein towards the acidic side & by adding ash towards alkaline side.

Review

After following the above notes, let us now see how we can build our nursery soil from our neighbourhood resources & keep it living so that it will go on increasing in quality & quantity day by day.

A living fertile productive soil, if at all we want to build is to be build once & then not only maintained but gradually increase as is done y nature on our road sides or since nature has started building Garden soils or Nursery soils four hundred crores of years back. We can build the necessary volume per area of cultivation within 2 to 6 months period.

3. The Organic part of Nursery Soil & how to built it.

3.1) The well composted organic part of the nursery soil is called Humus of ligno-protein. It is black, light, easily friable material that can be easily broken into small fragments or crumbs. It has a very good water holding capacity, twice its own weight. Generally the weight of such material per litre of its volume in fine crumb form is about 400 gms. It has a peculiar black lustre & we can see the dead colonies of the micro flora one over the other especially in the well-composted (humified) animal dung. We call this grade the best grade or A grade lignoprotein or humus made from the fibrous organic part. The B grade or good material can be easily broken into crumbs, but it has not got the lustre & lightness of A grade. The C grade or average lignoprotein material is that that can absorb & hold water but it is not easy to break it into crumbs. D grade is the fibrous material that can keep some water& has given up the fresh yellow & waxy colour of the material. The E grade is the worst stage material that has kept its polish etc. intact & cannot hold water even after soaking for one night. It needs trampling/ beating after wetting it 4 or 5 times and then it changes to D grade, then to C grade, then to B grade & ultimately to A grade organic part of nursery soil.

3.2) It is very interesting to see how E grade biomass gets converted by stages to grade D, C, B, A. In early monsoon rains where these organic E grade materials get fully wet & when the moisture level in the air is about 90%, within a fortnight we can see tender dried leaves & straws rapidly converted to A grade type lignoprotein. But these will vanish in the next one month & therefore should be sown with some growing grass cover or grain seeds to get these established & preserved till the roots and the above part of these seeds or grasses build new fibrous materials again in it.

3.3) The best parts that decomposed to A grade type slowly in one & a half months are the petioles, the veins of leaves, dried leaves with tough structures (mango/ banyan leaves) or stalks of Jowar/ Maize plants, if they are slightly trampled & made ivose & soft. Sugar cane bagasse or the husk of tender coconut cover or banana plant wastes, papaya plant wastes, various types of small sticks & twigs, the dried waste of various types of fast growing vines also come under this group.

3.4) It is very interesting to go & collect the trampled well softened remains of last year grasses on fallow waste lands in the very first week of monsoon rain, which rapidly changes into humus. It is easy to collect these by scrapping & sweeping the top 1 to 2 cms of soil mix.

3.5) Similarly by looking for green patches that grow by the road sides or both sides of the compound or under a big tree near its root collar area in early rains, we can easily collect a lot of good soil mix in equal proportion of its organic part & mineral part too. But one must not dig the soil, but scrape it & collect it by sweeping.

3.6) The real job for lignoprotein & humus formation starts with straws of wheat, or covers of paddy seeds. These have good covers that do not yield to change (golden yellow shining covers as well as some oil coating on it). Most of the dried organic matter has covers of brown or matty nature. But these covers easily yield & the materials can become wet by one or two tramplings or beatings. For wheat grass or similar organic matter, unless the cover is repeatedly beaten & trampled these cannot get easily decomposed. So people use these things for thatching the roofs, as these last for 3 or 4 years also in heavy rains. So to convert E Grade material of this type, the initial process of making these materials absorb & retain water for some days requires careful planning when the organic fibre type material can absorb & retain it, the E Grade material becomes D Grade material & when the fibres begin to soften & break it becomes C Grade, then the colour changes towards black, it becomes B Grade and in the end the fine black lustre in full crumb form is A Grade lignoprotein & humus form.

3.7) It is usual practice to use organic dried wastes for mulching to prevent water transpiration from the soil. But E Grade biomass for mulching is harmful to good flush of roots under the mulch. The covering material on most organic mulching material is of the Phenol group, that prevents the micro flora to attack the mulch, but along side these phenols also prevent root flush.

But if the mulch is half way from C Grade to A Grade, the mulch not only stops transpiration but also absorb moisture from the air in the cool hours of the night, so if one puts one’s hand under such A or B Grade mulch we can feel the heaviness & moisture content in it. These C to A Grade mulch also helps to build new root flushes under it, as the micro flora that is rapidly decaying the material to humus & lignoprotein produce hormones of Indol group that give a good flush of roots.

3.8) It is to be well observed & understood that generally such organic materials in E Grade are of very light weight. Generally a bucket or basketful (size 10 litres) of such material if fully dry is of the weight of ½ kg to 1 kg at the most. When it changes to C Grade the volume generally becomes half & at the end when it is converted to A Grade the volume gets reduced to 1 litre, weighing 400 grams or 2 litres weighing 800 grams as against the original weight of ½ kg to 1 kg of E Grade material.

3.9) To build good nursery soil from within neighbourhood resources one must make second habit of reading any biomass as E Grade, D Grade, C Grade, B Grade or A Grade also how to help these grades to accelerate their conversion from C to A Grade as well as how to stabilise these products & use these for optimum root growth & moisture provision to roots from the increase in relative humidity of the atmospheric moisture at night time.

3.10) Some fibres as coconut husk fibres of jute fibres are tough to change to A Grade materials. Cotton waste fibres are also better type of fibres that also take average good time to change to A Grade material. The A Grade lignoprotein & humus material ultimately gets fully degraded back to CO2 in about the same time as the time it takes to get converted to A Grade from E Grade. Naturally if the process of humification is slow as in coconut husk, wood, dust, thin wood strips or paddy seed coats, leaflets of coconut leaf, wheat straw or any such slow decomposing fibres. These lignoproteins provide more stable body to nursery sol than easily degraded leaf mould type lignoproteins. The humus component in the compost of animal dung has a three-year stability in the soil. It gets reduced to 33 % each year. One additional care that should be observered is that humus & lignoprotein get burned in hot sun so these should never be turned up & exposed to the heat of the sun.

3.11) In any good type of nursery soil different grades of A type lignoproteins of different life spans from 2 months to 3 years etc must be present simultaneously.

4. The Mineral Part of Nursery Soil.

4.1) Never collect, the mineral part of the soil, by digging the soil, but by scrapping the layers of any unturned soil on the wasteland. Even 1 cm. of soil from 1 sq. ft. is of volume of 1 litre. If the soil is loose as dust on the countryside roads that dust too is good activated soil.

4.2) In the early rains thin layers of clay soil collects at various points at various nooks & corners of the path of flowing run off water. When this soil is semi dry or dry we can collect it.

4.3) It is usual practice, to bring soil from riverbed soil, or from dried pond beds, or even from some near by farmlands. But this is possible at high transport and other costs. More over it is impossible, to take soil from one farm land to another farmland as it is the natural wealth of that farm. So one must learn that, the mineral part, of our farm soil must be maintained, by as little turnings as also if practiced by very shallow turnings, than deep turnings.

4.4) If at all, one has to collect mineral soil from our own farm, one must collect it only from the 1-cm. topsoil. In turning the farm soil, we allow the top mineral soil to get activated by the summer heat of the sun. But in that process, the organic component of the soil gets destroyed. If we will observe the turned up soil closely, we will observe that the crumbs of turned of turned soil, get slowly turned to powder form as the binding organic material gets burned by the heat of the sun.

4.5) One should also remember, while digging & filling any pit traditionally it is advised to keep the top soil layer, separate to use again to fill in the pit. This is the only fertile, nursery, (organic + mineral) soil part of the farm soil.

4.6) One must also understand, that the fragments of any hard or soft stones, (except Calcium stones) or small size stones or rocks are also assets in providing mineral nutrients to the plant, through the activation of these, by the secretions of the roots of the plant.

4.7) Some crops & plants grow well in sandy soils. The size of the particles of such sand must be smaller than mustard seeds. One can get as much sand as one needs by stirring up the topsoils in water. The heavy particles of the sand collect at the bottom while, light organic clay soil rests on the top, when water evaporates, we get these parts, layer by layer, the heaviest remains at the bottom & the lightest at the top.

4.8) To build the body, or total volume of the soil, we must have half the volume of the soil of organic part (lignoprotein & humus) & the other half of the volume of top soil collected or a mix up made up of clay light soil, with sandy particles in 3 to 1 parts. So that the weight 1 litre of dry soil, of this type is about 700 to 750 gms. The average weight of 1 litre of dry topsoil is about 1 kg, while the weight of a litre of dry crumb form of lingo protein or humus is about 400 gms.

Naturally when these are mixed in equal proportion by volume so the weight of good nursery dry soil is about 700 gms per litre.

5. The root – soil relation.

5.1) One can easily see, how much soil a plant uses in the prime of its growth, by properly lifting it at this stage from the soil, it its semi – dry condition. Such soil generally remains fully attached to the root zone without falling. We can then relate the volume of the soil with the area of the plant leaves. It is generally about one half to one litre of soil, per sq. ft. of leaves.

5.2) Secondly most of the vegetable crops have their feeder roots in about the 9 inches zone, while other crops too have their feeder roots mostly in this depth & anchoring roots in this or below this zone.

5.3) Naturally one can use pits, pots or containers of any type (plastic bags, polythene bags) or heaps of soil in brick pits or only open heaps can serve the same purpose to establish the root – soil volume ratio. The only considerations are the mobility of the plants or the ease of soil operations or the problem of protecting soil from heavy rains or winds etc.

5.4) The traditional way, of deciding the pit size & the plantation distance amongst the plants in lines & rows also gives us the wisdom of ages. Thus to have a banana plantation spacing 5” x 5” the pit size recommended is about 2’ x 2’ 1’ i.e. is 4 Cu. Ft. (one cubic feet is about 27 litres) or we can take for the simplicity of calculations as 25 litres, so per sq. ft. area of banana plant the soil provided is 4 x 25 by 25 Sq. Ft. = 4 litres by 1 Sq. Ft.

If the plantation distance of guava or pomegranate is 14’ x 14’ the size of the pit selected is 3’ x 3’ x 2’, i.e. about 18 cubic feet. It comes approximately to about 2.5 litres/ per Sq. ft spread of these plants. So one can reduce the volume as spacing per plants increases.

For Coconut plantation with spacing of 20’ x 20’ the fully, grown coconut tree will need soil of about 1,600 litres. That is a size of 64 cubic feet, i.e. 4’x 4’ x 4’ size, but even the size of 4’ x 4’ x 3’ is also good.

One should note, while growing plants like lemon, mangoes or coconut, the soil need in their early years of growth is less. Thus the mango plants can grow only in 1 sq. ft in the first year, 10 sq. ft. in the second year, 60 sq. ft in the third year & 240 sq. ft in the fourth year, then for the spacing of 15’ x 15’ of mango plant, in the first year, only 4 litres of nursery soil is optimum & accordingly lastly 960 litres in the last year.

5.5) So, by knowing the root – soil relation perfectly well, we can plan mobile plantation techniques, one year advance ring systems, of soil building, in circular pit methods, of fruit & other tree plantations.

5.6) This insight into root – soil relation is very important. By calculating the present canopy of the tree, we can decide how much nursery soil; the plant must get replaced, to have its good fruitful growth. (One litre soil per Sq. area of the plant or 4 litres of soil) By judging the spread in length & breadth of the plant. (By standing in front & by the side of the plant we can decide its length & breadth by spreading our hands on both sides & taking that measure in feet & multiplying length & breadth, to note its present spread.

5.7) If the plant is allowed to continue its growth in spread, in early period of its full growth, that much nursery soil must be provided in advance to the plant.

5.8) The calculation for the spread of the plant are per sq. ft. 4 litre, while for leaf area it is above 1 litre per sq. ft. i.e. a good plant must have at least 4 sq. ft. area of leaves. Strictly, these should be 5 to 9 sq. ft. of leaf area per sq. ft. of area of the spread of the plant.

5.9) Let us take some examples to understand what we have noted in 5.8. A good Sugarcane plant grows in an area of 1 sq. ft. But the leaf area of all the fifteen leaves of the plant, if calculated is about 8 sq. ft. So Sugarcane plant grows in 4 litres of nursery soil, but this soil if calculated from the leaf area will be about ½ kg of soil per sq. foot growth of its area.

In sprawling vines, like Bottle gourd or Red pumpkin, we easily judge the growth rate of the canopy, in the next 10 days. If it is about sat 3 sq. ft. then we must see that the spreading vine gets at least 1½ or at the most 3 litres of nursery soil, 10 days earlier to help the proper growth of the vine.

5.10) We will learn more details, about the root – soil relation in our studies of various crops. Vegetable crops, root crops, vine crops as well as various horticultural fruit crops.

6. To make & keep the soil fertile.

6.1) The easiest way to make the soil fertile is to build a heap, layer by layer of three components of the soil. (The mineral component, the lignoprotein component of the body of the soil & the fertility component through the cuttings of the greens).

6.2) Any green biomass, such as the entire green plant of flowering weeds or any tree, or any tree or bush top, tender growth of all types of green leaves of all age groups (tender, young, mature, old living leaves) from any green vegetation, all of these will provide various fertility (nutrient) components needed by the that will later grow in that soil. One must understand the definition of leaf. It is that part of the plant that is attached to the shoot or the stem of the plant. Many leaves are made up of small leaflets (Drumstick, Groundnut, Tamarind, Subabul, Gyricidia). So the leaflets should not be confused with the leaves. Some leaves need cutting (Mango leaves, Banyan leaves, Banana leaves, Papaya leaves) to make them into a cut of one half to one cm size in length & breadth.

6.3) Generally make a heap, by spreading the moist mineral part paper thick. Then on it put the green cuttings of fresh material paper thick. Then, again on it layer the moist lignoprotein material paper thick. Never make the heap more than 9” to 12” high.

6.4) After making the heap, sow thickly on it a mixture of small seeds; Grain group – Bajra, Jowar, Wheat, Pulses group – Black gram, Green gram etc, some Oil seeds like Sun Flower, Ground nut seeds, Mustard seeds, some weed seeds & other group like Marigold seeds that are generally present in the mineral part of the soil.

6.5) When these seeds germinate & grow for 3 to 4 weeks, pull out one half of the growth to allow spacing for the rest & turn these plants back in soil. Now sow more seeds to grow in it, while the other growing plants are competing with the new growth. Again pull out ¼ of the plants which are growing, when these are 6 to 8 weeks old & turn it back to the soil & sow the seeds in it, next pull out all the growth, when the original growth is about to flower & turn it back into the soil. This is what we may call imitating nature’s way of building fertility in the soil.

6.6) The other way is to sow the heap as above & pull all the plants & return to the soil after 3 to 4 weeks of germination, then sow again & pull out all the plants after 6 to 8 weeks of growth & return back to the soil. Finally allow the plants to grow till flowering stage & pull & return these back to the soil.

6.7) Really speaking, this process is a new method of green manuring. In the usual method, we sow some leguminous plants (bean) only to increase the nutrient level of the soil, after turning it back when it is in the flowering stage, because at this stage, the fibrous part of the stems also begins to form. But if we add to this group grain crops, then the fibrous part is more in quantity, at the time of its flowering. So the lignoprotein & humus raw material part is also added. Thus the new process of green manuring, by a mixture of all types of plants together is a better way of improving any soil, stage by stage, by repeated sowing & returning the greens till optimum fertility, as well as the productivity is established.

6.8) So, it is very easy to improve our farm soil, by keeping one tenth of its area for repeated biomass, mix production & using it to improve the soil, in that area as well as in other areas It is found that in green manuring generally the biomass produced by the plants in about 60 to 80 days, when it comes to flowering is about 1½ kg. So repeated sowing & heap method of producing ample reproductive fertile soil for any size of farmland is a sure way to make the soil of A Grade in 6 months to 1-year time.

6.9) We must always have in our mind a clear estimation of the volume of the soil, that will be required to build on our totally unfertile land or to improve & recharge the original farm soil, if it has some level of productivity & fertility in it. The maximum time duration after proper planning should not be more than 6 months & 2 months minimum.

6.10) In our early discussions, we have seen that an area of 1 sq. ft. spacing in plants at the most needs 4 litres of fully productive fertile soil and more over even 2 litre soil per sq. ft. is enough when the spacing between plants is more than 100 sq. ft. So for 1 Guntha (one fortieth of an acre) it is about 4,000 litres or about 400 basket full (one basket of 10 litres) of soil that has an equal proportion of organic & mineral components in it as discussed earlier.

We shall see later why we will be required to build this much soil, only once for all in the entire lifetime of our farmland. So if at all, one has to improve the soil, it mostly from the biomass component fresh or dead. We have to balance it & one can do it in less than a period of 6 months starting from whatever grade of farmland soil or garden soil that one has.

7) To read & improve the soil.

7.1) The whole success of biomass growth of any plant depends on the productivity & fertility of the soil. The soil that will be productive & fertile for weeds such as Parthenium, or grasses may not be at all productive & fertile to other types of plants. We must remember that the fertility of any land is first built by nature, through marshy plants, algae mosses, weeds, grasses & bushes that grow there first. We must respect & use this ecological heritage of our neighbourhood flora to build up our soil.

7.2) The easiest way, is to see the weeds, grasses, bushes, small trees, big trees, that flourish in the neighbourhood under high water & weather stress & even in long drought conditions.

7.3) So, when you build some soil as explained earlier or bring some soil scratching it from under the tree, or from the fallow grass land, or from nearby farm soil.

7.4) When we build or bring some soil, we can test its productivity, by sowing some big seeds, such as Ground nuts, or Bean seeds or some seeds, or Red pumpkin or Cucumber, or Bottle gourd, as well as some seeds of Maize or Jowar seeds. Maize & Jowar seeds take more time to have its root flush about 30 days, but Groundnuts & Bean seeds can give us a full flush of roots in about 15 after germination. So if we have a plastic bag of 1 ½ litre or the 1 litre milk bags (breadth about 14 cms & height about 15 to 24 cms) & fill it tightly with the soil making it open both ways, we will see that in fully lignoprotein/ humus type soil, the spread of roots will be such that, if we by gently pressing the bag, pull the bag out, we will see roots & roots & the network of roots, in the whole ball of soil.

Thus one can easily test, the productivity or the form, structure & texture of the soil. We have already seen that such soils are always light in weight when dry or moist & this is another way to decide, whether we must mix again enough A or B Grade lignoprotein in the soil.

7.5) It must be noted that the soil may have vigorous root growth even in sandy moist soil, for a time being. As the seed we sow will have all the necessary nutrients (fertility factors) already provided by the parent plant, to help it to grow & get established. The seeds grow even over rocks or on heaps of small stones in moist condition, till half of its period of its first phase of growth. The plant begins to use, the fertility of the soil, from its second or third true leaf. The size of the leaves especially in vine crops (Cucumber, Red pumpkin) generally doubles at each successive leaf growth & the 5th or 6th leaf is of the usual full size of the mature leaf. It must be observed that the leaf takes about 5 days to achieve its full growth after it starts spreading. Then the spread of the leaf remains the same till it dies.

So, observing the size of each successive leaf growth, one can see if the soil is taking nutrients, or if the soil is fertile, but lacking root growth, due to water stress, or the soil is not suitable to give a good flush of root growth. Because of various conditions for e.g. like half composted material in the soil, excess fertility, unbalanced fertility, less aeration, cold temperature, or pH of the soil not suitable to the plant.

7.6) If the soil has a fair root growth, then we can read the plants growth as lacking nutrient balance. Then we can again take the soil for greening & returning these & other greens from other plants & weeds to the soil, stage by stage. Or we can add a spoonful of ash of dried tender parts of the trees & bushes or the ash of burnt animal dung.

7.7) Many times the trees grow, but not in full vigour. Then by comparing the actual vigour & growth to the vigour & growth of any standard average plant, we decide the comparative grades E, D, C, B, A.

7.8) The other way to judge the productivity & fertility of the soil is to make a heap of 2 baskets (20 litres) to 4 baskets (40 litres) of soil & sow all type of mixed seeds, mostly grain seeds, spreading beans or pulses & spreading vines (Cucumber, Red Pumpkin) or vines of Sweet potato or planting some Marigold or Parthenium weed type of plants.

The heaps should be sloping, circular and to the height of 9” to 12” & before the heap gets settled, by the roots of growing plants, stone mulch, or any other cover may be used, or a polythene bag of the size of 18” may be suited to hold 20 litres of soil.

If in this soil one can get a yield of 1 kg of dry mass in 100 days, in thick canopy growth, then we can say that the soil is A Grade soil.

8. Making our soil living soil.

The details of making our soil a living soil is not difficult to understand or grasp, but unless we make & keep our soil living we will be required to add each new season, new productivity & fertility building components as external inputs. Living soil goes on maintaining & also increasing its volume & grade in each successive season.

This week in Adharshila

2007-09-16T17:04:00.000+05:30

Mirchi Week

This was mirchi week in Adharshila. After Jaya ordered a drastic cut in the red chilly in the daal and vegetable everybody was talking just about chilies or the lack of it. Chilly is the main spice and a favourite. So Jaya’s action couldn’t havee been taken lying down.
The older girls initiated a children’s meeting to canvass for more gun powder.
In the meeting Jaya put her point. She used all her persuation skills, and the facts that came out in the malnutrition survey conducted by the amazon group children last year. The survey, had shocked us when we found that even households with irrigation had malnutritioned children. The food habit survey had brought out the fact that very little veges or fruits were consumed. Mainly daal and in the lean season chilies were the favourite food.
More than half the children surveyed were found to be malnourished. Children were found to be eating mainly carbohydrates with chilies.

The older children understood the logic but chilly was part of a strong habit. Most of them agreed after she took the responsibility to get tasty food made without chilies. Finally they also made Jaya concede to put ten more chilies.

Well it’s five days now and every thing is fine. New things have happened in the mess. Like the fuel efficient, Sarai cooker, bought from AARTI, Pune was reactivated. Some other spices were added and Jaya took cooking classes of the older children who help in cooking.
As of now the matter seems to have ended.

Volunteers

Veena Lakra, doing her Masters in elementary education from Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai, is here for her placement. She is trying to understand the teaching methodology used in Adharshila for social science related topics.
Shailaja, an organic farmer stayed here fo about ten days and showed the children many new techniques of growing vegetables. Most of her time was spent in planting seed to develop a fence around the farm and the campus.

Bhutta Break

The fact that the children are leaving tomorrow for home for a short break has overshadowed everything else. This break is unique to Adharshila. The corn in the fields is ready to be eat. children are given a break at this time so that they can go home and have their fills of corn and other fruits mainly traditional varieties of cucumber and watermelons.

……so long.
Meet you after the break.

An Appeal for Organic Farmers

2007-09-15T11:21:00.000+05:30

Aazadi of a different kind……….
@adharshila.learningcentre
@sakad_in_badwanidistrict_madhyapradesh.ind
Flag hoisting on a barren piece of land on 15th August..
Part I

In the Kaveri group everybody is laughing at Mangala’s drawing of the flag.
Why are you laughing? A woman is unfurling the flag in Divya’s drawing! They exclaimed and started laughing again. So what? Why do you think a woman cannot do the flag hoisting?
This set the teacher thinking and it was decided that this year the flag hoisting would be done by a woman. So it was that Sumli Bai, an activist of the Adivasi Mukti Sangathan hoisted the flag this year and told the children about the various freedom fighters and adivasi leaders who laid their lives fighting for justice for their people.

Part II

Hey, where are we? Why are we in this field rather than being near the school building ?
And what’s this ? No flowers or decoration around the flag ? Five six types of leaves are placed at the base. Something in a bucket nearby is stinking.

It has started to drizzle and no shelter around. Mukesh Bhai is talking about the problems of farmers and the crises of agriculture in general. The children are getting restless and Mukesh Bhai cuts short his speech. The children run for shelter. Many elders also follow suite.
But a small band remains in the rain. The teachers and elder students of Adharshila are there. So are some villagers and parents of children staying with us in Adharshila. They are digging the field and putting hemp plants in the shallow pits and covering it with soil. The hemp was grown on the field and cut just before flowering. Cow urine and pesticide created from various leaves are sprayed on the plot where the hemp is buried.

It is a small ceremony. Every body is drenched in the rain. Someone breaks a coconut and says – today we are starting a new experiment in organic farming to save farmers from the clutches of money lenders and companies and also to provide food security to the poor.

Children are shouting slogans –

(Desi beej rakhna hai kisan ko bachaana hai.
Jaivik Kheti karna hai, Gulami se bachana hai –
We have to protect traditional seeds, and save the farmer.
We have to do organic farming and free ourselves from bondage).

The rain is there to bless us. If you believe in omens it’s a good start.

It is a beautiful sight. The flag furling with all its glory amidst a dark sky and green fields all around. People drenched in the rain. Digging the field and shouting slogans. There is a romance about the whole scene. A small but significant event. If we pursue what we have started then this 15th August will become a historic date.

Part III
After the children’s performances and sweets we got to serious talk with the parents - all farmers. The mood had been set by the ceremony. There were long sermons on the ills of using chemical fertilizers and pesticides by all the parents inspite of the fact that all of them use these chemicals and are heavily into market propoganda. Jayashree explained the main themes of organic farming. Most of the farmers were able to grasp this because they have seen chemical free farming themselves. Some of them still practice it in parts. She also told them some examples of Maharashtra where some farmers have taken yeilds to the tune of 3 tonnes in one acre. Or about 20 quintals jowar and toovar in one acre. Most people didn’t believe this. We said that we don’t believe this but want to try it on our land. Six other farmers and parents of children studying here volunteered to try this experiment on ½ of ¼ acre land. A small start..

Background……

We have been doing organic farming at the Adharshila Learning Centre for the past 6 years. Farming is one of the main themes of our educational programme. This is so because we think that our educational programme should address the needs of the surrounding area. About 100 adivasi children stay here and are growing up with organic farming. Learning by working on the farm and eating its fruits. Our target is to make this hostel for 100 students self sufficient in veges, pulses and fuelwood. We have about five acres of farm land to work on. Friends keep coming to help us out and guide us. We are looking for more of our types to come and stay with us and help us in farming.
Any takers ?

You can ask for more information on Adharshila by contacting Jayashree and Amit at –
09425981606

Or
Email at-
adharshila.learningcentre@gmail.com

Report 2006-2007

2007-09-08T11:30:00.000+05:30

Dear friends,

We are happy to present the 9th Annual Report of Adharshila Learning Centre, Madhya Pradesh, India.
Thanks to your support and belief in us and our work Adharshila is one of the leading examples of alternative education in the country.
A brief outline of ideas practiced in Adharshila is presented here. Hope you enjoy reading. It will be a great help if you share this report with other friends interested in children, education and those who want to join hands for a good cause. We will send the report to your friends if you can just mail their id to adharshila.learningcentre@gmail.com
Your suggestions will be very useful for us.

Annual Report
Adharshila Shikshan Kendra
2006 – 07
Veer Khajiya Naik Manav Vikas Pratishthan
Village : Sakad, PO : Chatli, District Badwani
Madhya Pradesh
Phone : 07281 283221
adharshila.learningcentre@gmail.com

The Cast

155 children at the opening and about 135 on the farewell.
80 residents and 75 day scholars
Girls – 40
Adivasis – 150

Badri Lal Solanki – Mess, Agriculture and Miscellaneous tasks
Devika Solanki – Craft, agriculture
Shobharam Kanouje,- Middle classes, Administration, Accounts
Shanta Kirade – Sports, library
Nemichand, Vadarsingh Pawara – Middle classes

Student Teachers

- Senior girls and boys who will give the 10th exam from the open school next year, worked really hard to make the primary school a success -
Kamal, Majali , Suresh, Shakuntala, Suresh Chota, Prakash,
Savita, Anita, Anita, Sunita, Bhagiram, Gyarsilal, Seetaram, Dinesh

And

The Amazon and Nile group children helped by taking classes in their free time –
Dharmalata, Manisha, Jamuna, Vijay, Shersingh, Anil, Kashiram, Pushpendra, Chetaram,

Volunteers

Karuna, Shashank, Sumit and Vijendar

Direction

Jayashree and Amit

Introduction

The mandate we had set for ourselves was against the common perception of people. We started work in an area where in the name of education people have only seen non functioning govt. schools. There expectation is to simply have a good school, ie. where every body passes with good marks. As opposed to this we have been trying to make Adharshila a place where children can live freely and creatively and not be bogged down with the drudgery of school.

Secondly, there is no link between schooling and the life around us. The only link that people see is - schooling leads to job leads to money leads to better life. For some years this link worked for a few individuals. How many individuals benefited from this can be gauged by the fact that about 98% children who join school never compete school. Even the national average for this is 96%. Also the jobs found through schooling are usually outside the local economy. So schooling has not led to any societal change – nor in terms of strengthening the local economy nor awareness about problems and solutions. It has not contributed to finding solutions to people’s problems – economic or social. In this sense schooling has not educated children. They only make a few of them capable to serve at the lower end of the job market.

Our mandate was to change this linkage. To make education more relevant in the local and broader context. To help the child realize his talents, potential and dreams while growing up. To help him bloom in his own special way, rather than mould him in a particular way.

Thirdly people see schooling as a way to ‘discipline’ the child through a strong authority.
Where as we are against hierarchy and authoritarianism. We see Adharshila as a place to nurture freedom.

People see education as a gateway to the mainstream world. We see Adharshila as a foundation for a new world.

Adharshila is not just about teaching children. It is about educating society through these children. Success or failure, we are not sure but definitely there are lots of lessons to be learnt for people interested in education for change.
…………………………………………………………….
It is difficult to write an annual report after a decade. One is constantly reminded of all the dreams, struggles, successes and failures. The immense effort of so many people and on the other hand, extreme frustrations and loneliness at times, Lot of ideas have been tested and challenged, new ideas born, in the past ten years. We started on a clean slate. Now we are ready to write a book. In this report we are presenting some of the themes (very briefly) that have engaged us during the last ten years..

Democracy in Adharshila

The criticism of regular schools is manifold. The regulars are that they promote rote methodologies, stifling of children’s creativity, the culture that the school promotes, curriculum and cramming facts, cut throat competition – thus individualism. One more which is not so popular, even in alternative education circles, is the structure of the school it self.
Some of these are also seen as problems by mainstream schools. But some like competition are actually seen as strengths of the school. Some people send their kids to schools for the elite culture that they breed. They know where they belong!

While starting Adharshila we had all this in mind and more. Let me share our experiences in democracy in Adharshila. We started very radically like all new converts do. In the first year we took student feedback on teachers. Not just this we shared it with teachers also, though after much briefing – this was a big mistake. They just didn’t want to take it. We also realized that the power it gave to children was too much for them to handle. They started behaving rudely with the elders.

We were amazed at the possibilities of this bombshell method of giving power to children but also cautioned. We were also scared that the already scarce commodity, the teacher, will vanish.
But this experiment definitely set the tone for the children and adults for things to come.
One of the complaints of adults to date is that children speak in front of adults, don’t respect elders and the usual cribs. But no one can deny that they do a lot of great things.

When we got hold of the book about Summerhill, we knew that we were in the company of greats – in thinking about democracy in schools. We were greatly impessed and immediately set out to apply Summerhill to Adharshila. It was called swashasan. The rules had to be made by the children and they had to adhere to it and see to it that they were followed. Swashasan meetings were a hit. They lasted till 10 -11.00in the night, without us of course. Rules were made, changed, punishments and warnings – the works started happening. Gradually the seniors or vocal people started earning the ire of the junta.

But democracy half way is very dangerous and damaging to democracy itself. Though lot of decision making was happening, it was more of a implementation committee. And we were still there to veto or the children knew what was right by us. It came to an end on its own due to lethargy. It demanded a lot of energy on children’s part.

Right now there is a group of about 12 senior students who are very actively involved in running the school. They have Sunday meetings to decide the week’s program and fix responsibilities. Thursdays are review days. The farm, student mess, primary classes - all come under the purview of these meetings. The annual function was done completely under the guidance of this group.

Next year the group will be involved in more key decisions.

The senior children, who are not giving board exams, are free to choose their topics of study/activities, based on their interest. They make their weekly schedule, daily schedules and follow it on their own. Some times weekly targets are given to them and they are asked to complete on their own and get the work checked. Many days they are working for ten hours. Classes are taken to introduce new topics.

Progressive School

We try to follow a questioning approach. Many contemporary issues are debated and different viewpoints are brought forth. Some of the central themes are - Gender sensitization, people’s view of environmental problems, importance of organic farming,
Self respect – through language, culture, history.

Many projects and activities are undertaken to discuss these ideas. Special workshops are also held on specific subjects.

Innovative education

Some examples

Natak India Company recognized & Theatre in Education

1st January 2007. 45 children and teachers are packed in a small truck. They are singing songs and shouting slogans. Spirits are high. They are off to Ankush Vihir, a small village in Maharashtra.

This year the Natak India Company, Adharshila’s theatre group was honoured. It was invited to perform in an Adivasi Sammelan in Maharashtra in front of a 10,000 strong crowd. Darbar Singh had seen the Company’s performance 5 years ago in another sammelan and had liked it. He came to invite us saying he wanted the same play. Reason – people remembered the dialogues of the play even now and all the bhashans of big netas were not even heard attentively. We were flaterred. He payed for our travel and hospitality. We earned a good friend.

He is also ready to start a school on the Adharshila pattern. Last we heard was that he had identified a piece land and one or two persons to run the school. Theatre is regular feature in Adharshila. The children love to enact stories. The elder children enact plays on Independence Day depicting the full story of the independence struggle in the local context. Besides being an excellent educational medium theatre helps children in confidence building and opening their personalities.

Theatre was also used in a workshop with the adolescents, about the state of children in villages. During the workshop a play evolved which was shown on the annual day. Two teachers also participated in a 4 day theatre workshop, held in Adharshila.

Indigenous Urea factory urf Organic Farming

Do you know every house has a urea factory! Yes, even your’s. Well urea – urine – sounds similar, is similar. Adharshila has at least 80 residents and 3 animals. This makes it a very big urea production centre. Production is high but collection and use is less.

As far as the cow urine is concerned it acts as a pesticide and enriches the soil and we spray it regularly in our field. It is really a substitute for urea which farmers have to buy in increasing quantities every year and which surely destroys the fertility of the soil.

Some farmers in our neighbourhood and some parents also picked up the practice. Coming back to the urea factory – we saturated heaps of soil with piss and put it in the farm. Visitors were very amused when shown the urea factories.

While we are in the farm ……….

Like last year this year too we were deeply involved in louki, torai, baingan and tamatar and kaddoo. This year’s highlights were the 4 ft. long loukis. In spite of excessive rains we were able to get about 5 quintals of vegies and 1 quintal daal. We used cow urine extensively. Pesticide was made from leaves of local plants and trees. Milk products were also used to fertilize the field. And of course organic matter was put around the plants as mulch. We tried a new idea of not weeding the brinjal and tomato plot for quite some time. When the weed became as big as the plants we cleared the area around our plants. Later the weed was not uprooted but cut and spread. In some parts, where it was very thick, it was uprooted. This gave us the much needed organic matter of which we are very short. We were also able to establish a green fence around one vegetable plot, comprising mainly of Adulsa and Aloe.

The children went around the village to collect waste organic matter. There were three school plots. The responsibility of looking after these plots was given to different groups. The children worked on these plots during school time and also in the evenings. Each group had it’s own plot also where they planted whatever they wanted to. Some children made their own groups and cultivated. These were also very successful. This year’s bhindi kings were Shobharam(10yrs.) and Ganesh (12yrs.) of Brahmputra group.

Another highlight was that the growth of brinjal plants was extremely vigorous, although it was planted on very poor quality land. They withered due to lack of water. We tried a lot, but could not put a drip irrigation system in place.

On our educational tour this year we went to see the organic farm of Dhirendra and Smita Soni. They are electronic engineers who dropped their jobs to do organic farming. The best thing is they work on the farm themselves the whole day. The farm is their main source of income. The children were inspired a lot and so were we.

This year we can try to actually propogate the use of cow urine in place of urea by printing pamphlets and wall writing and talking to farmers. A team of children who are interested in organic farming can go to villages to propogate this. This has long term implications for making agriculture sustainable – one step to reduce dependency on the market.

Organic Farming is a part of the curriculum. It is one of the main ideas that we want to transfer to children. We believe it can become a part of their thinking only by doing it with full involvement and enjoying it.We are also trying to convince parents to adopt organic farming techniques on at least 1 acre land.

Working for the community

- Baal Melas in 15 villages

The team of student teachers and the Amazon and Nile group children went around govt. schools, talked to the principals and convinced them to conduct a Baal Melas in their schools. In this way theyorganised Baal Melas in 15 schools. In some places, on seeing the mela other teachers and Sarpanchs invited them to their villages. The travel of about 15 children was paid by the school teachers or Sarpanch. They also got donations. In the end they netted Rs 2000/-
In each school/village the Melas were attented by 100 – 200 children and adults. The main activities in the Mela were – group games, songs, science experiments, drawing, origami, story telling and looking at nails and lice through a microscope.

This is an activity which children can manage on their own and is also useful educationally. It helps raise the confidence of children and makes them more responsible. This is a very nice exercise in team management, leadership skills and group dynamics.They tried to identify youth in these villages who could be trained to do these activities on their own. But this could not happen.

Malnutrition Survey in 5 villages

Every year a health survey is done by children. This year the focus was malnutrition. We also had the advantage of Dr. Varma who guided the children. About 85 -90 children were found with severe malnutrition. The children learnt to identify malnutrition. The survey report prepared by the children was published by local newspapers. Dr. Varma also participated in a press conference in Bhopal, about the status of health in Madhya Pradesh. Due to Dr.Varma’s campaigning the district health administration held a health camp at a nearby village and AMS – a local people’s organization also took up the issue.

In the discussions that followed the survey, many chapters from the biology book, related to disease, primary health, food, protein, vitamins etc. were covered. The children discovered the power of campaigning and speaking out.The children also prepared health supplements and sold about 50 kg of it at cost price.

The children also learn about medicinal plants and ways of preparing ayurvedic medicine. This year children prepared balms for headache and cold, syrup for anemia and cough syrup with Dr. Varma’s help

School Health Programme

This is a new programme that we started this year with Dr. Varma. The idea was to interact with school children and make them aware about seasonal health problems and malnutrition, healthy diet etc. He visited about 10 govt. schools, once a month and gave talks. The teachers reacted quite positively to this.

Books and Newspaper by children

This is a regular feature of Adharshila. Children make their own books based on folk stories that they have heard from their elders. They also illustrate these books. They also make books on topics of their interest after consulting the library and talking to people who know the topic.
A weekly newspaper is taken out by a new group every week. The group is made by taking two children from each class. This is presented in the morning assembly. Interesting news items are also read out from the newspapers.

This exercise helps children develop their writing and comprehension skills in a creative manner. A Rough draft has to made before the final product. Other creative exercises are also taken to develop writing skills like taking interviews, writing songs and stories, essays, summaries etc.

Observations and science teaching

Recording observations forms an important part of science education. Children are encouraged to observe from a very early age. In the beginning they record observations through drawing and later in words and a numbers and by making tables. The kind of observations varies for different age groups. They observe just about anything – the food they eat, colour of clothes, things in the classroom, things in soil, growth of plants, changes in seasons, temperature, humidity, crops, seasonal disease, water levels … just about anything that catches the fancy of children or the teacher. The elder children undertake village level surveys and prepare tables to classify their observations. Results are discussed and conclusions are drawn from these observations.

Children are encouraged to ask what they want to know about things around them. Then their questions are taken up as topics and studied rather than doing chapters from the book. The children consult books from the library and write about their questions and later discuss in class.

Another aspect of science teaching is the social aspect of science. The older children are engaged in debates about so called achievements of science. The merits and demerits of dams, earth cutting machines, harvesters from the view point of tribals and labourers are discussed.

History

Children go around villages in groups to talk to elders and from these conversations piece together stories of the past. Some stories that they have been able to find are –

How people survived in droughts –stories of chapniya akaal;
How did Reechada Boyeda get it’s name?
Story of deforestation around Sakad Village.
History of the school land.
History of the local stream.
Story of a school run by Gandhians in the 1950’s
Besides these projects children make time lines, do historical plays and read books too.

Art Craft

The craft room was one of the most active places this year. Many children made woven jute bags and belts. The smaller children made mats and hand bands for themselves. Some knitted mufflers and caps for their fathers and small children at home. Some of the craft pieces were sold at the People Tree shop in Delhi.

Craft work provides dexterity to the hands. It helps in developing coordination in children. The satisfaction of making something with ones own hands is immense. To inculcate respect for people working with the hand is one of the important values that Adharshila wants it’s children, to imbibe. Like last year this year also children made greeting cards in the art classes. A poster competition was held to depict the plight of migrant labourers hit by silicosis, in Gujarat.

Tours and travels

This year too the children went on various tours. The major tour was to Rajpipla, Gujarat to see the hospital run by ARCH Vahini. The great thing about this is that it is being run by people who have got on he job traning with Dr. Pate.. We also saw a workshop for making farm machines through appropriate technology. We visted the Soni organic farm and were greatly impressed and motivated by it.

The sea at Dandi is a hit spot every year. this year we added Toran Maal to our list. This is the hghest point of the satpuras in this region. The place is of religious importance and famous for its vast store of herbal plant. The children also visited our sister school – Rani Kajal Jeevan Shala, Jhabua. The smaller children went to Baewani to see the hand made paper factory, Bavangaja, and the Narmada river.

Primary Teacher Training Programme
A hope for the failures

This programme started last year. There were two-three reasons for starting this programme.
One was that schools produce 97% more drop-outs than pass. The programme is an extension of the original idea of older children helping younger children to teach. Thirdly economically this is a very viable for non funded organizations like us. 12 youngsters aged 16 – 18 years formed the student teacher group. For 4 of these it was the second year of teaching.

Some are Adharshila students who opt for 10th exam through open school. But others are 8th – 10th failures. When they join their academic level and self confidence is very low. In the first three months basic language (Hindi and English) and math skills are imparted to the student trainees. They are asked to learn nursery rhymes and do all the activities themselves. Mock classes are held with them. Discussions about the education system and general topics are held twice a week. Basically after the first year they start getting out of the failure mode and realise that they too can do something.

In the second year they start taking responsibilities independently. The pressure of giving the 10th board exam fast is a big detriment to their learning. Weekly meetings are held with each of them to plan the weekly programme and review the previous weeks work. We are in the process of finalising a curriculum of sorts for this group. They sit with senior teachers and assist them in various activities. After three months they were given independent charge for doing activities with primary classes.

This group of 12 students managed the nursery school almost independently. Besides teaching they also looked after craft, mess and general management. We had to hear a lot from the parents for this, though, who said that there are no proper teachers here. How can failures teach? To answer there questions the annual function was held in Chatli from where, lot of day scholars come. The function was conducted by these youngsters and was full of English poems and conversation as an advertising point.

We are looking for a co-ordinator for this programme.

New trades learnt

Plumbing - four children helped in setting up the plumbing lines in the campus. Two children have gone to Hyderabad for a two mont course on plumbing and electric fittings.

Masonary – Six children constructed a water tank base I the masonary project.

Computers – three senior students learnt MSExel and helped in entering accounts and listing of library books. Others helped in data entry of reading materialprepared in the school.

Weaving – the children and one staff member learnt weaving jute bags hand bands and belts. We are also trying to sell them.

Natural dyeing – A team of two teachers and three students went to Sampoorna Kranti Vidyalaya, Vedchi, to learn natural dyeing techniques.

Tailoring – We supplied about 100 bags to Elements, a shop in Kerala. One boy went to Manthan, Rajasthan to attend a two month tailoring course.

Solar Lamp Repair – one boy went to Samparkgram, Jhabua to learn to repair solar lamps. He was already repairing the solar lamps on the campus.

Participated in …………..

· Activist Trainings organized by SRUTI.
· A.M..S protest march against electricity shortage and Blocking NH3.
· AMS dharna against irregularities in EGS.
· Staged a play in the Adivasi Sammelan, Nandurbaar, Maharashtra.
· District Health Sammelan organized by CEHAT,Badwani.
· India Social Forum in Delhi.
· Social Science Training for middle School organised by Eklavya in Bhopal.
· Delivered the Jaya Prakash Memorial Lecture, Gandhi Vidyapeeth, Vedchi, Gujarat.
· SRUTI Mitra Milan at Dehradoon.
· Press Conference on Right to Food
· India Health Forum, Bhopal
· Health Camp, Chatli.
· Cycle Yatra in Badwani District to find out the status of EGS works.

Support to New Initiatives

Initially we had thought that many Learning Centres will be established in the AMS area and with the help of other people’s organizations. Due to lack of people in Adharshila we could not give much time to this process. Though we contacted many people but nothing much came out of it. Many organizations showed interest, including some SRUTI fellows too. Every year people come and take ideas from Adharshila and start schools in their area but are not interested in keeping links in the future.

· Last year a new school was started in Mardai, a remote village of Badwani district, with Adharshila’s support in teacher training and educational support. This year with the help of other young people, the school has been transformed into a full fledged residential school with about 50 children.

· An NGO in Sheopuri, MP, started a residential school taking initiative from Adharshila. By chance this school is also called Adharshila. 5 teachers and a coordinator stayed with us for 3 days to study the ideas and method being practiced in the school.

· Training - Six boys, sent by AMS, a local people’s organisation, were given teacher training. They stayed in Adharshila for one month. They initiated the process of starting three schools in their respective villages. Out of these one was alive at the end of the year. They are trying to start a residential school next year. It was envisaged that the trainees will come to Adharshila once a month for two days to review, discuss problems and take the next month’s programme. But this did not happen.

Board Exam Results 2007

10th exams

Total students 2
Passed 2

8th exams

Total Students 11
Passed 8
Re appear 3

5th exam
Total students 14
Passed 14
Re appear none

We are richer by

Dr. G.D. Varma, an Ayurvedic doctor who has 10 years experience of working in NGOs He is looking after the health programme and health education of Adharshla and surrounding schools.

A generator. Due to the pathetic electricity situation in our part of MP our 3 phase tubewell just refused to pump water. Children had to treck daily. The task was done in a very organized manner but the sheer drudgery was too much. And when this went on for months we decided to buy a generator. Hope fully this will help on our farm too, though we will have to work out the economics properly.

A shed outside the kitchen. Due to Jaya’s ingenuity we got a big semi covered space outside the kitchen. This is used for eating, relaxing, sleeping and studying.

Teachers. Vadar Singh joined us with the usual promises of spending his lifetime teaching children in Adharshila. He lasted about 4 months. Was good, while he was around. Reason for leaving – govt. job.

Computers. Thanks to SRUTI we got computers, not one or two but full ten. The children started using at least three of them. We are looking for independent power options for these.

Bullocks. The two calves that we had have grown up and started working – on the farm and carting grain to the flour mill. Children had a nice time training them.

Morale Boosters – those who visited us…

· Dr. PV Bhalerao, Veterinary doctor, Maharashtra.
· Members of an NGO from Chhindwara
· Rohit and Praveen, film makers from Delhi.
· Pundalik and Alok, film Director, Mumbai.
· Student group from Manzil, Delhi, for 5 days
· Sushil Joshi, Eklavya
· Sunil and teachers from Adharshila, Sheopuri NGO, MP
· Ashok, Ekta Parishad, Gwalior.
· Students of Social Work College, Pune
· Students and teachers of Daily College, Indore and Appleby College, Canada.
· Shri Padawi, Akalkua, Maharashtra
· Shri Gajanand Brahmane, Mukesh Dudve, Sumli Bai, Bijoy, Rajesh and others from AMS
· Dinesh Solanki, Rajendra Sharma and Rajesh Dinge, Motiram Barde – trustees.
· Khemla and Bhuvan, KMCS, Jhabua, MP.
· Kemat, Ninga, Kisram and Bhagat from Rani Kajal Shikshan Kendra, Kakrana, Jhabua, MP.
· Shri Keniyalal, Ashagram, Badwani.
· Shri Nikunj Bhutiya, Orissa
· Payal and Karishma –student volunteers from the US
· Sumit and Vijendar, volunteered for 1 month and taught English
· Arundhati Roy, Writer and Critic
· Shreepad and Nandini, Manthan Documentation Centre., Badwani
· Harish Deshmukh, Dilip Solanki and Hri Pthode from Andhshradhdha Unmoolan Samiti
· Hartosh Bal, Journalist, Tehelka and Freelance writer
· Team from Bhasha, Gujarat.
· A British couple who came to India from England by land route.

Those who helped us, financially…..

This year too we managed the school without any institutional grants. Fees, grain and donations from friends kept us afloat. We even managed to build two covered areas with these donations.
Next year we will have to increase our fund raising exercise as we want to get more qualified teachers and it is becoming very difficult to retain people at the pittance that we are able to give. This we hope to achieve mainly through friends and students art work. But we are being forced to think about writing proposals to trusts with similar interests.

Mr. Mahesh and Ms. Madhulika Aggarwal
Mr Ramesh Kacholiya
Mrs.Bagchi
Ms. Pushpa Nagpal
Mr. Umesh and Ms. Shachi Atree
Shri Vibhash Sureka through the Krutagyata Nidhi
RS Bhatnagar Trust
Mrs. Chitra Kumar
Indu and Mr. Manoj Mathur
Mrs. Sneh Raj
Ms. Meenu Tewari
Dr. Pankaj Kr. Bhatnagar
Mr. Rahul, Mr. Pratyoosh and Ms. Mamata Kumar
Ms. Natasha Badwaar
Dr. Ms. Amita Baviskar
Mr. Ravindra and Ms. Pomilla Shroff.
Mr. Ranjan Mohanty
Mr. U.K. Varma
Ms. Urvashi Prasad
Ms. Kaushalya Gupta
Mr.Avinash and Ms. Sharma
Shri Shashank Kela and Ms. Karuna
Mr. Sanjay Paul
Mr. Arjun

Plan for next year – 2007 – 08

This year Adharshila will complete 10 years. We have many plans besides taking stock of achievements and failures. What was our agenda and what could we achieve?

Some plans for the next year are –

Fuel wood from the campus – Plant 500 trees in Adharshila.
One Tonne Organic Vegetables and pulses from farm.
Baal Melas in 25 villages / schools.
Complete teaching material for primary groups.
Dialogue with other alternative schools.
Teachers for middle section and a coordinator for primary section.
Help in setting up other schools/educational programmes.
Visit other schools
Explore the possibilities of making student committees and a people’s committee to moniter Govt. schools.

An invitation to become a partner in the Education

2007-09-06T10:30:00.000+05:30

An interesting educational experiment is taking shape in a corner in rural Western Madhya Pradesh. The Bhils, Bhilalas & Barelas who inhabit this region are part of the country’s indigenous population. Even today most villages of the region suffer from lack of electricity, water, access roads, education, medical facilities etc.

The best land has been lost to non-adivasi/tribal settlers. From a forest based & marginalized agricultural economy; they are either becoming a wage based economy where the forest and land base have eroded. In places where agriculture has ‘developed’ (irrigation) they are getting into cash crops where the remuneration depends on the market. Administrative corruption is rampant. Exploitation of adivasi/tribal communities continue by petty officials, liquor traders & moneylenders. The forest amidst which they have lived a life of dignity has been denuded thanks to a century of commercial exploitation by the state. As a result the soil is eroding rapidly and migration to nearby cities is a common annual phenomenon.

Cash crop farming in the name of agricultural development, is pushing the farmers to debt traps and creating infertility of soil, due to the increased dependence on electricity, water, chemical fertilizers, pesticides & multi national company seeds.

‘Education’ has also brought in a change in lifestyle for those who have gone through school. The main opportunity this has offered is of government jobs in the lower rung of beauracracy. Very few are able to make it to senior government jobs or medicine, engineering etc. Civil services have also remained elusive. With the increased interactions with the market & mainstream society everything from clothes, attitudes, value systems, likes, dislikes, social structure, culture, housing, everything even the gods are changing!

One of the roles of education as we understand is to help people understand & cope with these changes or enable to chose or guide the path of these changes to whatever extent possible. We give the example of the sieve. Education must provide the mind a sieve to judge, what to keep & what to throw rather than giving ideas to follow the path blindly.

Primary education in the villages present a dismal scene. Many of the state schools in adivasi/tribal villages exist only on paper. Teachers seldom perform their duties, preferring instead to draw their salaries from the comfort of their homes. Even in schools where teachers arrive sober than drunk, the standard of teaching is abysmal. The curriculum bears no relation to the life of the children. The language & the concepts are unfamiliar. Learning is mechanical & is laced with brutal punishments. Students end up been alienated from their culture & villages and also grow up lacking in self esteem, self confidence, creativity & social awareness and also this type of education makes the educated youth feel that the only option in life is to swell the ranks of the unemployed competing for jobs that are increasingly unavailable.

More than 90% children who start school are branded as failures on the way to the 12th class. As a result there are thousands of children who have no opportunity to get even basic education. Obviously the fault lies with the education system and not with these 90% children.

We are convinced that education is a fundamental key to long-term transformation. We are convinced that education is one of the biggest weapons of change. A society was registered after the name of Veer Khajiya Naik, a freedom fighter of the area in 1998, in the name of Veer Khajiya Naik Manav Vikas Pratisthan. (The Satpura hills in Khandesh, inhabited by the Bhils & Naik tribes have been a turbulent area since time immemorial. For the safe passage of armies & trade the conquest of this part of Khandesh was crucial for all rulers with imperial designs as the main routes linking the south & the north parts of the country passed though this area. The brunt of these battles were faced by the Naiks & Bhils in terms of devastation of forests, agriculture & the loss of their hereditary rights. Veer Khajiya Naik was one amongst them. He posed the biggest threat to the British during the first war of independence in 1857. He along with 3000 men & women waged war against the British & gained control of the Shendwa -Shirpur section of the Agra – Mumbai national Highway. The British killed him in 1858. Khajiya is still worshipped by the tribals as a symbol of strength.)

Aims of the Education/Learning Programme

The aim, content & method of education is been redefined to help the adivasi/tribal children to realise their full creative potential & develop into socially aware & responsible adults, capable of leading their community on to new paths of community based & ecologically sustainable development.

To impart not just basic, but quality education; relevant & meaningful to the community’s collective life and helping the child to fulfil his/ her aspirations in life.

To equip the children with knowledge & skills while fostering a wider social awareness and a willingness to make personal sacrifices. And most importantly to make learning a very enjoyable experience.

To develop self confidence & self respect.

To learn how to learn & what to learn.

To stimulate the interest & curiosity to know & learn about new things.

To develop the creative potential of the children.

To be able to communicate orally & in writing.

To be able to make sense out of numbers.

To develop a synthesis of traditional wisdom & modern science.

Impart values, which help children face the challenges of the new world & to grow up with a sense of justice.

To document the traditional knowledge, history & culture.

To develop a new health system based on modern science & traditional knowledge.

To develop ecologically sustainable farming methods that is low cost & suitable for small land holdings in the region.

To develop new thinking based on gender equality.

To instil strong secular beliefs & respect for all the religions & their history.

To question existing superstitions in society.

To learn, understand the beauty of music & dance.

The dreams & hopes are actually endless, when we dream for a better world.

Dreams apart, we are also rooted in to our present. The behaviour & reactions of seemingly educated & civilised people during communal riots, the ongoing war in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, the conspicuous consumption, rampant poverty, degradation of the ecology & environment & disrespect for the millions of flora & fauna which co-exist with us in this universe in exchange for short term goals have raised very serious questions, besides others about our educational system-formal (school/college etc) & the informal (society & other influences).

What have we taught our children? Or what is that we couldn’t teach them? Is violence, intolerance, selfishness, conspicuous consumption a natural out come of our schooling? Is there anyway to influence the society towards rational thinking? What kind of values do we want to inculcate to build a strong, fearless but non-violent society? How does one impart values & a sense of justice? Has schooling become irrelevant as far as imparting values or making good citizens is concerned? These are serious questions which all of us concerned about our future & our children should address & not just leave it to politicians & governments.

We realise that the market forces, media, & societal influences are very strong forces shaping the behaviour of children & adults. It is very difficult to fight these forces. We have seen these forces overtaking the influence of the school many a time.

We have also seen the difficulty that most parents & teachers have in understanding & accepting new ideas. Probably much, much more effort & time is needed.

All these events reinforce the fact that education is not about books & exams. It is tragic that we have reduced it to literacy. The worst part is that the parents are so greatly influenced by the mainstream education that it is very difficult to convince them that there can be an alternative to what goes by the name of education today. To be true, as of now there are no alternatives. More so, if our lives after school are going to be determined by paper qualifications then there is no recognition of talent, skill or intellect with out paper qualifications.

It is this dilemma & lack of real options in life that has forced us into a dual system of giving board exams on one hand for recognition & following a different curriculum to try & be relevant in between. Constantly our nerves are on the tenterhooks & we keep biting our nails comparing them with city kids & wondering what will happen.

To create an alternative for others is one thing, but trying to practice it is a different ball game altogether. There are a lot of theories about these issues but very little of it has been practiced. There are many practical difficulties in preaching freedom & trying to run a child centred school with which we are grappling with daily.

The teachers/felicitators also have doubts about new ways of dealing with children. Many times they feel threatened. So it is a very big learning experience for all of us.

To develop this alternate educational model a residential school Adharshila Shikshan Kendra (Adharshila Learning Centre), Shendwa (Shendwa is situated on the Agra – Mumbai highway is one of the biggest cotton mandi (market) in the area), was started in 1997/98, to run the education programme.

The school uses creative & stimulating experiential methods, to make learning a pleasure & develop a spirit of inquiry amongst the children. Teacher/ felicitator training & development of teaching material is also done in Adharshila.

Your Support

Funds for the schools are raised from various sources. The running costs of schools are taken out through non-institutional sources. A fee is charged from the children in the form of cash or grain. Many times the parents help by voluntary labour or building material. Friends pitch in with donations & sponsorships @Rs 6000/- per child. For capital expenditures we have taken institutional funding. Our emphasis is on raising funds from individuals as this provides an opportunity for people to get associated with this work & they can contribute in other ways too.
We would like you actively participate in this project & make it a success.

You can help the adivasi/tribal children’s education programme in many ways

Be a volunteer with us for whatever period you want, to share your skills with the children.

A contribution of Rs. 6000/- a year will look after the full expenses of one child’s education. (Cheques / DD’s should be made in favour of ‘Veer Khajiya Naik Manav Vikas Praristhan’) Donations of any amount on any special occasion in your family will go towards infrastructure building.

Books for the library (In English or in Hindi)

Educational aids, games etc

Stationary materials (including computer stationary), Colours etc

By spreading the word & involving your friends in this effort.

By buying & promoting the various hand made products which the children have been making for fund raising like cards, jute bags, cell phone covers, etc

For further information about this new initiative in education &learning please visit us at http://adharshilak.tripod.com/adharshila.html or contact us at:
adharshila.learningcentre@gmail.com

Contact persons:

Jayashree/ Amit (+91) 07281 283221 (Shendwa) (+91) 9425981606

(+91) 011 22541930 (New Delhi)

Postal Address:

Adharshila Learning Centre,
Village : Sakad, P.O. Chaatli,
Via: Shendwa, District: Badwani, Madhya Pradesh. India.Pin: 452 666.