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Pune
- Date:
- 19 December 2002
We catch a train to Pune: first stop a rural schools project. I had met John and Zakia Kurrian before. Their work to promote the quality of teaching in mother-tongue languages throughout India, has gained an international reputation; Karuna has funded several of their projects in the past. I am interested to hear about their latest initiative - radio programmes teaching English.
"Before Karuna, we tried unsuccessfully for 18 months to get funding from the government or abroad," explains John. I am pleased that Karuna has had the courage to fund it. In India English is the language of higher education, technology and the internet. Children in the slums or rural areas are taught English by teachers who often do not understand English themselves.
"Radios are cheap and if they broadcast interesting programmes, English teaching could be done well Through this medium." It has proved a great success, with childrens' comprehension and spoken ability improving dramatically. "Central government is now keen to provide Funding and to expand the project into new areas."
- Date:
- 23 December 2002
We visit a rural school outside Pune which uses their radio programme. I am going down with a fever and arrive grumpy, speculating that the Nagpur mosquitoes have given me malaria. I sit in the shade while lan, indestructible as ever, photographs the school assembly.
The class teacher clearly loves her work: the walls are covered in chalk drawings, beautiful Hindi script and English. There is one desk and two chairs, one of which has a small Hindu shrine. The children, bright and enthusiastic, sit in rows on the floor. I notice some are immaculately dressed while others wear uniforms that are threadbare or several sizes too small.
The programme starts in a mixture of
Hindi and English with a simple story line between two children. It is quite humorous and the children sit in rapt attention. After this there is a call and response section in which the children enthusiastically join in.
The teacher makes notes or dictates which children with their arms thrust in the air she wants to respond to which radio question. The programme finishes with a song in English and they all join in.
Afterwards the teacher goes back over the material. I am impressed. I've often found that children may understand English but are shy in speaking. Here they are happy to practise their English as we exchange questions.
After Ian has finished taking photos, the teacher told us how the radio programme has helped her confidence in teaching. Our Jeep pulls out of the yard, teacher and pupils waving from the doorway, a bent old lady with silver hair and an orange sari leads a herd of black water buffalo in front of the school. "Would ye believe it?" Ian laments, "I've just put my camera away."
- Date:
- 24 December 2002
Today we are to meet Dr Manda Mune at the Karuna funded Pimpri health center. By 9am the queue has already spilled out into the yard. We are ushered into an office and Manda arrives to discuss how we might take photos in her small surgery without disrupting her work.
I speak with Abhayashri, who helps to run the project, and learn that in addition to the health centre they run kindergartens, adult literacy and sewing classes, family planning, Aids and leprosy awareness programmes. Eventually the queue subsides.
I ask Manda about her life and she is soon in tears. She recounts the death of her mother when she was six, after which she looked after her three younger brothers and sisters. Later she lived in a hostel where she was inspired by the care of the wardens. She qualified as an Ayurvedic doctor in 1985 and worked with her husband, a fellow doctor in an upmarket practice. Materially she was comfortable but, remembering her own childhood, she felt compelled to help the poorest communities. At the same time she found it distressing.
"When I saw somebody's sorrow, I would only cry. Now I am crying but I am also helping."
In 1996 she learnt to meditate. This I helped her to respond better to the suffering of those she wanted to help.
Her meditation teacher encouraged her to volunteer in one of the slum projects. As her confidence I grew, she began working full-time.
"Meditation is a vital tool. I am more I aware, happier. I learn things in the: Buddhism and meditation classes I and here I put them into practice. I
am more sensitive: I try and see beyond the ailments which bring people to the clinic, see the suffering inherent in slum life - the fear, violence, alcoholism, desperation. Now I feel I am helping with the whole of my heart."
We follow Manda on her rounds in the adjacent slums. The eyes of those she meets reflect trust, respect, even love. We say goodbye" and squeeze into a rickshaw. Crossing roads and waste ground, the light, the sun bleached grass, even the rubbish and dust are strangely beautiful. As usual we pass kids playing cricket.
The Jivak centre is one of Karuna's oldest projects. Like the Pimpri project it provides health care to nearby slums, kindergartens and womens' literacy classes. It also helps local women set up small businesses. We are going to meet Sampada Gaikwad who is involved in one of several community savings groups seeded from Jivak .
Sampada is delighted to see us - as are her friends, neighbours and many local kids. Immediately she squats down by her petrol stove and puts on the kettle. She has been involved in the savings scheme for seven years. When she joined her husband had been out of work for three years. He sought what work he could repairing pans or stoves. A neighbour encouraged her to join the savings scheme to help them through the worst times.
She started saving 20 rupees a month (about 30p). Even that was sometimes difficult, as she has four children. Recently she borrowed 12,000 rupees (about £170) from her savings group to send her son to art school. Hearing this aroused my interest.
Dhammaratna, Sampada's son, had gained the highest mark in art at school and the teacher believed he was very talented. But going to art school was unthinkable - there were fees to pay and materials to buy.
Sampada approached her savings group: what was the most one could borrow? She was told each case was considered individually, but about 10-12,000 rupees.
After considering her record in the group,' and the quality of her son's art work. they agreed to the loan. 'Through the. savings group my neighbours became friends,' Sampada says. "Now they are like family.'
At the current rate it will take 20 years to payoff their loan, although I hope their courage in helping their son to follow his dream will enrich their lives and give hope to others in the slum.
Before we leave, Dhammaratna proudly lets us choose a painting.
- Date:
- 25 December 2002
This is the last day of interviews so, although I still feel unwell I rouse myself and board the Jeep for another bumpy ride out of town.
This project is a combined school and hostel for children from the excriminal caste community as well as other deprived castes and children of prostitutes.
Ian is fascinated by the idea of an ex-criminal caste and, despite having visited before, I remain baffled: how can people be born into a community and have an inherited duty to be criminals?
Vilas Waugh, who founded the school, is a modest, down-to-earth man from an ex- Untouchable background. He was a university lecturer, where he met his wife, a former brahmin. Then leaving academia they started a publishing house specialising in books on social reform and justice.
They used the money from this to publish more books and set up schools and hostels for children from the most deprived communities.
Although Vilas runs several schools, he knows the names background, talents, and caste distinction of all the kids and would have introduced us to them all I am sure.
We go to the home of Sainath, who is 7, where we meet his mother Sangita Raju Pillai. Their hut, though more solid than many, is beside a busy road surrounded by wasteland.
She has three children and lives alone. Her husband, an alcoholic, has left, and her family has rejected her for marrying a low-caste man. Each month she worries about earning enough to pay the rent.
I ask Sainath what he likes about the school. "The food." I notice the wiry build of his mother. Obviously a bright boy, he says he wants to do well at school and get a good job as a government officer. Poverty forces maturity on children. 'I miss my son, but I am pleased that he can go to school and is happy there.,' says Sangita
We return to the school to talk to children from different castes. Vanita and Suman Chavan, 13 and 10, come from the Ramoshi caste. Their parents are farm labourers, although formerly the Ramoshi caste was classified as a criminal caste.
After lunch we head off with Santosh to visit his family. Santosh is 12 and has two brothers and three sisters. His family is from the Vardar caste of stone workers. The track leading up to their village is rough and busy with lorries. "The village is by the quarry," says Santosh. It has been here for 1 5 years with no running water or electricity.
Eventually we can drive no further and so we walk. The huts are squat and solid, built like dry stonewalls. There are many kids around and young girls with babies on their hips. Everything and everyone is covered in a fine grey dust. Santosh's parents are still at work on a government building site 10 miles away. The sun is setting as we trail the quarry trucks. The boys know the way, having worked there during the school holidays. A compound wall and a rickety watchtower protect what, I guess, is a military site.
However, access is no problem and we find Sukhadeva Dhotre, Santosh's father. Most of the workers have left; there is just enough light for Ian to take photos.
"At first I missed my children," says Sukhadeva, "but this work is exhausting and I want them to get an education." He leaves before dawn to travel the 1 0 miles to work and after a day cutting or breaking stones he returns in the dark. Sometimes the
work dries up for months. He wants something different for his children. Halfway back we pick up a group of women returning home, including Santosh's mother. We squeeze them in and they all enjoy the novelty of a lift. We arrive back in the village in total blackness, save for our headlights. They thank us profusely and invite us for tea. Aware, however, that all water and fuel has to be fetched from almost a mile away, we decline
- Date:
- 4 April 2003
Several months on, and a number of fundraising appeals later, it has been good to read over my journal. In the midst of life in the UK, it is easy to forget the things we take for granted: food, clean water, health and education facilities; things that in other parts of the world are beyond the reach of many. It feels good to be part of something that is helping change that.
Thank you. Jayaraja.