October 2009, Happy Deepavali!

hey folks,
I hope you're enjoying the fall.

I guess since I last wrote, I've gotten the chance to learn more about the NGO here, Vidya Poshak, and the residential 'bridge' camp program.

The first camp takes place at the end of October, so I'll be sure to fill you in about that once it's completed. We visited the site a few weeks ago, and the scenes along the way are breathtaking. There are so many different shades of green that make up India's rural landscape. Makes me feel that where you learn may be as important as what you're learning.

Three other fellows and I are just about to complete a 10 day yoga camp, with a local volunteer here at Vidya Poshak, who has completed her studies in yoga at Karnataka University. She has a calming voice, and 'shavasana'/corpse pose is so relaxing. Apparently, folks who have been practicing for a long while get enough rest their practice and need less and less sleep. Not the case yet for me. It has been fun getting more intentional movement into my life, and the classes also focus on 'pranayama' --prana meaning life, ayama meaning expansion. These are basically breathing techniques which help move stagnant energy in the body. The breathing helps us develop our lung capacity, and it's been neat to learn the health benefits of yoga from our teacher.

I have been spending some time at work developing a presentation on adolescent health issues for the camp students. This has been really fun--I enjoy translating stuff (particularly health information) that can be a)complex b)boring c)scary, into knowledge that young people can really utilize and leverage in their own lives. It's a vast topic, so I'm at the moment focusing on hygiene, nutrition, mental health, chronic disease prevention. Sexual education in schools, from what I have gathered from folks here, is limited to a very biological perspective or sometimes nonexistent--I am searching for and hope to find a sound health education curriculum being implemented currently in schools. It can be an awkward and anxiety-provoking topic for young students, especially those who are not used to co-ed settings. So, I really want to gather from the students those topics that they have questions about. As such, the girls (25-30) who attend the camp will have an informal session with the other female camp coordinator and myself.

I'm trying to be a student of Indian education. We have visited some schools and interacted with students, and just hearing their views is eye-opening. My colleague and I facilitated a meeting with about 12 Vidya Poshak students as a follow-up from their camps. The meeting was comprised of presentations (the students chose the topic 'Union Budget of India, 2009'), and I chose an article for discussion, reflecting on the appropriation of Gandhi's image for commercial purposes (has been done more than once, this time to sell a 15,000 pound pen made by Mont Blanc, a French company). Really intriguing points raised by all students (if the object is a 'good' object, it is okay; Gandhi emphasized locally made goods, so would he buy the pen?; if an outsider sees this advertisement and then looks up Gandhi in a book and learns something new, can the ad then be said to have a good outcome....).

I am eager to visit the Centre for Learning, about 2 hours from Bangalore. The school's educational philosophy--awesome! From their website: The central challenge of education, for us, is the awakening of a non-divisive awareness that is the movement of true learning and inquiry. The educator and the student are part of this inward journey that is not dependent on any dogma or authority.

Vidya Poshak is trying to show whether the programs we do have impacts that are 'measurable.' We met with a professor of Psychology who does evaluation as well. He described how an inferiority complex, which can be a detriment to learning, can sometimes act as a force of change. For instance, in work settings, those who feel inferior may actually work harder and perform better than their counterparts who might have a superiority complex. This issue is certainly not unique to students here.

While I recognize the importance of evaluation/impact analysis for some purposes (seeing whether our objectives line up with our outcomes), showing funders that this cause is worth their money---it is a bit challenging for me, being someone who sometimes clings to anecdotes more readily than other forms of evidence; i.e. I love hearing from students how these camps have influenced their lives. Because we are trying to determine the impact of camps, that is, whether teaching things like confidence-skills, leadership, etc. so called 'soft skills' is valuable, I am really keen to see how the Centre for Learning, which uses a lot of novel (innate, perhaps?) teaching techniques, 'measures' qualitative, subjective data. We're hoping to visit in November.

We have a few days break for Diwali/Deepavali...so I'm off to my mom and dad's places this weekend, where I'll enjoy sweets and farm and family.

Happy Deepavali!

Love,
Kavita


'Hunger to Learn': The article, below, is a look at a young boy, 16, who has started a school for 800 students in his community who don't have the resources to go to an outside school. An amazing dude!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8299780.stm

'Against Meat': This article is wonderfully written, and for anyone who knows me, the author talks about two of my favorite things in the world...grandma's and food....I love his self-critique and desire to know why he eats what he eats, and his reflection on being a parent...really beautiful: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/magazine/11foer-t.html

from India... September 2009

Hey y'all!

I'm really glad to write to you finally. I really wish I could paint a full picture for you. I think it's a bit difficult to describe such a unique setting--so maybe that means you just all have to come visit :)

I just arrived in Dharwad, Karnataka, the place I'll call home for the next year. It's a pretty quiet town, and the climate has been really pleasant here. I'm working with an organization called Vidya Poshak, www.vidyaposhak.org, whose mission is 'empowering the student community'. This week, we've been getting oriented to the NGO (non-governmental organization/nonprofit sector), which has been great. We (three Indicorps fellows, www.indicorps.org) have been getting to know the students, volunteers, community members, and others who are invested in improving the education system.

Vidya Poshak runs a few different programs. The first is a scholarship program for meritorious students with financial need. We had the chance to attend the ceremony where the scholarships were distributed to the students--this was special, as some parents joined in, and the students got a chance to say what the funding of their studies meant to them. One student was kind enough to welcome us into her home afterwards.

VP takes many efforts to ensure that the scholarships are going to truly needy students, by making home visits, assessing financial need in that way. Perhaps most of this analysis is visual, but it seems that one's housing can say a lot about the ability to pay for higher education.

I will be working on the bridge camps, which are basically camps for the scholarship students of VP. Feedback from students indicated that they appreciated the financial assistance and access to libraries (another VP service), but were eager to gain skills that helped them through college and beyond. Hence, the beginning of the bridge camps. These are 9 day sessions, where students learn about self-confidence, communication, English skills. Students here are often hesitant to ask their college professors questions, perhaps out of intimidation or anxiety regarding their English skills. The camps try to emphasize the importance of making mistakes, because this indicates a sincere effort. From what I've heard from students here, these camps are unique experiences--the first day is often a struggle as it might be a student's first time away from home, but by the last day the students are sad to leave one another (sort of reminds me of Camp Crystal, where I was so homesick, but fed this sadness with Snickers bars and sprite every afternoon). I can't wait to go to my first camp in early October!

Vidya Poshak also runs a Graduate Finishing School. We've had the opportunity to interact with students at the GFS, and it's been really fun just reading articles and discussing what we learned from the article. Today, we read a piece about London in the 1850s, where open sewage led to a huge public health dilemma, with a cholera epidemic. These students are so hungry for knowledge and a chance to communicate in English, it's very inspirational to see how hard they work.

My two Indicorps mates, Geetha and Pramal, are lots of fun. Geetha worked for several years in entertainment and event management in NYC, and Pramal is a British dude with a background in the corporate sector. Both are really wonderful folks with a great passion for moving India's education system in a positive direction. We've been enjoying each other's company, as they try to learn Kannada, and I try to improve mine.

The 3 week orientation with Indicorps in Ahmedabad, Gujarat taught us so much about self-sufficiency. One of the books we read before arriving was Gandhi's autobiography 'My experiments with Truth.' It was really fascinating to learn what a scientist Gandhi was, always experimenting--with diet, making his own clothing, walking to the ocean to get salt (versus paying the British salt tax). He writes about this desire to learn about himself through a curiosity about the world around him. We watched the movie Gandhi, a really beautiful look at Gandhi as a person, more than an icon. One of the Indicorps philosophies is on 'simple living', which it seems meant many things to Gandhi--wearing khadi (homespun cotton-- I have not yet achieved this), cleaning one's space and the space of one's community (during our orientation, we took turns doing safai, or a meditative cleaning), simple diets (we're practice a vegetarian diet here, and trying to avoid fancy meals, though we haven't said no yet when others have taken us out for lunch), relatively simple travel and accomodations (sleeper class on the trains is a trip! And you meet the kindest, most generous people who share food, stories, songs with you).

From a larger perspective, it's about simple thinking as well. There's nothing that complicated about 'ahimsa', nonviolence, or 'satyagraha', truth movement. I think that's one thing that is so fascinating about Gandhi--his ideas were so simple, yet RADICAL! Simple living in the Indicorps context is just sort of stripping away the extraneous 'stuff' in one's life so as to focus on personal growth through service with others. It's pretty challenging, especially when you find yourself converting things to dollars and thinking that something is kind of inexpensive, but then remembering that your stipend is such that it exemplifies life in India, not America, and so...whoops!....you don't really have enough money to buy a chocolate bar. Anyways, I definitely appreciate the value in washing one's own clothes, etc. and I hope to do that during my stay here, but we are constantly discussing whether and how a simple life makes one a better servant for humanity--is it because you can relate or connect to people who might not have a lot? I don't know. It's challenging because you sort of can't erase the 27 years of being Kavita in America.

We had a lot of great discussions during orientation and beyond--
what is development? how are developed nations 'better' than developing ones, if they are that? what is respect--is it saying 'sir/madam' or being fearful of your superiors? what constitutes change? I keep going back to my experiences in med school, where it's so crucial to fix acute problems, but at the same time work towards long term solutions.

One session was with an architect in Ahmedabad who was adamant that India is not special and we shouldn't treat India as if it is special. He stated that every person deserves a certain level of comfort and dignity, and 'helping' perhaps is the wrong attitude to have towards development work. This resonated with me, because I think it helps me connect to people more closely not because they are Indian or speak Kannada, but just because I can share something with them just as they share something with me. This raises the question, however, of why India? I guess that's part of what this year is about.

There are certainly moments here where you feel stunned by some sensation or emotion: joy when you see a young boy who shares with you his love for song and playing a beat with his hands on the kitchen table, gratitude when you eat some anna, sambar (rice and curry) that tastes almost like your mom's, guilt when you get to eat a meal and the person you've just passed by doesn't, fear when you're crossing the street and realize that buses are way bigger than you, heartache when you see an elephant made to stand with paint and decoration in a chaotic street under the guise of religious appreciation, and inspiration when you see a young girl who is 'poor' by some standards, but superbly rich in spirit and thirst for knowledge.

It's crazy!!! I'm learning a lot, missing you all, and wish for you all the best,

Love,
Kavi

p.s. these are two articles I read, one about health and climate change, and the other an op-ed from John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, re. the health care debate. would love to hear what you think.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8257766.stm

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html

Namaskar

ನಮಸ್ಕಾರ್!

Namaskar! Greetings!

Finally....a blog! I didn't realize it was so easy.
Hope you'll leave a note, ask questions...

love,
Kavita