by Sabriye Tenberken
“Everything is difficult, and every day there are new challenges. But luckily there are two of us. When one gives up, the other has still enough energy to push us forward again.” Their accounts remind me of our own start-up phase, almost 25 years ago. Back then, Paul and I had the crazy idea of founding the first school for the blind in Tibet. Now, I listen to the exciting stories of Niwas and Shivani and I immediately feel transported back to our own past.I remember our attempt to make empty, echoing rooms somewhat habitable by using beds and tables that were nearly falling apart.
Then there were the rather meagre meals that we ate every evening, thin rice soup spiced with a little cabbage and chili paste, prepared on a ramshackle camping cooker, meals that only made us go to bed even hungrier.
And all these nights of restless sleep, jumping up at every crackle to chase away the rats with a “Shoo!”. These were big hairy beasts that were after our limited food supplies. And I remember the feeling of not really being welcome when all we wanted to do was make a positive difference in the lives of blind children
Luckily, like Niwas and Shivani, there were two of us, and whenever one of us got fed up and wanted to quit, the other had an idea how we could overcome this or the other challenge. We somehow managed to climb over one hurdle after another until today we are finally able to encourage others to keep climbing.
But Shivani and Niwas have something crucial that we back then didn’t have. They are not beginners, they actually know what they are doing. During the kanthari program, they spent almost a year working on their ideas, stress-tested their projects in a virtual world, faced many critical questions from participants and catalysts, and developed clear project plans and convincing strategies on how to tackle any possible problem.
Their projects are two very different ideas that surprisingly complement each other extremely well.
With her newly founded organization “Wild”, Shivani’s goal is to contribute to saving biodiversity and forests. In particular, she focuses on training tribal women who live in rural areas and have lost their traditional practices of farming and food due to the spread of industrial agriculture. In addition, due to her own visual impairment, she is interested in integrating people with disabilities into value addition and regenerative agriculture.
With his project Anantmool, Niwas wants to establish a school with its very own curriculum. He is particularly interested in free, informal teaching in which it does not matter whether one feels like a boy or a girl and is thus limited to very specific subjects, activities, or games.
In his school, there should be no caste distinctions, no hierarchies. Teachers are addressed by their first names, and pupils have a say in what they want to learn.
These are two grand visions. And it did make us a bit thoughtful, when they announced to us in December that the first projects would start in January and the school would already open by mid-February.
But they made good on their promise. In mid-January, Shivani told us about her herbal coffee project, which she started together with tribal and disabled women.
And Niwas found an old, abandoned school in the same village that had been run by a local NGO until seven years ago. At some point, however, the funds had run out. This left the children of the villagers, where there isn’t a single school within a 3-kilometer radius, had to grow up without schooling. As a result, a whole generation is unable to read, write or speak Hindi.
But when Niwas and Shivani showed up, everything happened very quickly. They cleared the school of overgrowth, cleaned the toilets of slimy maggots and dead insects, fixed up the classrooms, and cleared the playground of branches and leaves, and lo and behold, the first children appeared and filled the schoolyard, which had been abandoned for years, with laughter, screams and the squeaking sounds of the old swing.
And just a few days later, their school was filled with 26 children between the ages of five and twelve. They are children from the immediate vicinity, as well as those who have to walk more than two kilometers through the jungle and cross hills to attend classes.
Some of the students are children of the women Shivani has already worked with. They have confidence in the strange couple. Other parents are skeptical and sneak into the school during lessons to see everything for themselves.
“That’s fine with me,” says Niwas, ” because that’s the only way we can convince them.”
With the mothers, the work of persuasion goes quickly. After all, what could be more impressive than seeing children having fun while learning? However, the style of teaching is something completely new to them.
“The week is divided into three sections,” Niwas explains, “Mondays and Thursdays are for learning concepts. The main subjects are Hindi, English, mathematics, Social science. On Tuesdays and Fridays, the concepts are put into practice. The entire concept is all about practical and playful experiments. Wednesday is community service day, where a group of children cook for all school children and staff, identify problems in the village and find possible solutions, learn about business and agricultural activities.
This is cleverly devised, as it gets the tribal neighborhood used to the benefits that the new school project brings to their community. And yet, despite all this, there is great resistance.
Shivani tells me that they receive calls at night and are insulted by strangers. “We should leave as soon as possible. Says the voice. And even though the village chief assured us that we had nothing to worry about, there are people wander around outside at night to scare us.”
“But then there are the children, and we know why we have to put up with all this!” Says Niwas and I hear the smile in his voice as he tells of a little girl who initially turned up in a school uniform. The girl always stood on the side-lines, not joining the wild games of the others, and probably feeling a bit out of place. But then, one day, she came in everyday clothes and a huge change was noted. The girl started climbing trees and wrestling with the others in the dirt. While playing football, initially, the girls would only watch, till Shivani showed that every child can play ball.
Shivani and Niwas already have a third comrade-in-arms, a young indigenous man from the tribal community who helps them translate and is already taking over by teaching some subjects.
The first hurdles have been overcome, and since they have already given hope to children and women, Shivani and Niwas are very motivated to continue.
They are not deterred when a green poisonous snake dangles from a mango tree just above the path to the toilet, when the ant colonies devour their small supplies, when they can only take a shower properly once a week. All this will strengthen them for the future and one day it will be an exciting story that encourages others not to give up. In the end, we are all born to survive in the wild.
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www.anantamool.org
You can support anantmool gender-free learning centre via: https://milaap.org/fundraisers/support-niwas-kumar#
You can support Wild via: https://milaap.org/fundraisers/support-shivani-kumari-3
