Gandhi Fellowship: From India to Bharat: A Voice Within... of a Gandhi Fellow

Beyond the realm of armchair talk to walking grassroot realities

The Kaivalya Education Foundation (KEF), the first of its kind in India, was conceived by the necessity that preceded it. The necessity spun out of the fact that teachers and headmasters of government schools, though trained well to be inside the classroom, were being deprived of appropriate and adequate training to run a school as an independent unit. This was largely due to a complete absence or careless scarcity of available options in terms of institutions to meet this need. This need was congruent to certain researches that showed that low standards of quality in learning are directly related to low levels of proficiency in running a school.

To strike at the root of this problem, KEF devised the Principal Leadership Development Program (PLDP) in Rajasthan. Only recently garnering state support via an MOU, the PLDP although had unwound its initial stages at the grassroots level since January this year, consolidating the requisite support from the lower echelons of local and district departments up to the state educational departments. This was done from down to up instead of up to down to ensure that sustenance for this initiative remains with the passage of time.

The PLDP ultimately places keen focus on the Headmaster/ Principal as it is believed that if appropriate and adequate assistance to them in the arenas of personal, social, instructional and institutional functioning is provided a change in schools is sure to be noted. The school as a unit is but viewed as a triangle with the HM at the top, the teachers in the middle and the students the largest mass at the bottom. It was logically derived that the HM receiving training from the top would divulge quality for it to filter down to the bottom.
To transport the PLDP from the boundaries of filed papers, posters and spoken word into a breathing reality, the Ajay G. Piramal Foundation supported the creation of the Gandhi Fellowship. This brought together able and compassionate youth from colleges in and around Delhi as fellows, all strung together by the oneness of cause.

Jhunjhunu: More Than A Funny Sounding Word

The coming together of eleven people: all from different backgrounds, all with different utopias, all with different methods in their peculiar madness, all with different passions and biases, but needled into the same thread by the singularity of belief and cause – sustainable change – within the self and in the targeted environment, that of government schools.

Leaving behind friends, televisions, movie halls, malls, cloistered academic lives and everything else urban, apart from the contrast it constantly provides, us folk came around to Jhunjhunu like a breeze here to stay. After excursions into the town and swallowing all of the little it had to offer one felt at home in these new environs. From making friends with the juice and cigarette guy to having made acquaintances of the waiters at the town’s only two restaurants, life here in its limited space has managed to offer endless bounty in terms of peeling new experiences.

It is, however, the incursions into the villages that will not ever be gratified. From earning the wrath of the bus conductor for making anachronistic noise to arguing ceaselessly about the pros and cons of purdah (oppression of the woman to protection from sun), from gazing cows and camels to restless flowers in tranquil landscapes, from smoking cigarettes behind the elaborate pillars of abandoned wells (dhaani) to conversing with heavily jeweled women, and so much more that there will be justice only if it is seen with one’s own eyes and felt by the heart.

After a long day (which would include getting ready, gobbling a quick bite while slowing down for relishing slurps of tea, riding the motorbike at average speed into the assigned village for an assigned task which can range from interaction with the sarpanch to teaching students math, that too in Hindi laced with broken Rajasthani!, coming back home/office, reflecting over the day’s incidents and experiences, sharing it with peers, bitching about the cook’s turmeric dosed food) one finally retires to the room or the roof where the moon and her harem of stars nurse…

Thursday, October 2, 2008

A Voice Within... of a Gandhi Fellow

This is the journey of mine from the limelight of the globalised India to real Bharat.Being a Gandhi Fellow , is an effort towards taking steps ahead which is more important than being a mere spectator. I experiment therefore I am , and the effort is the hope .to explore myself and then from there taking steps toward bringing the change.
First of all, if I want to see a change , it should be first to feel the change myself, a change within for change outside... is the voice within , as a result of experiences gained here at the grass root level.
"Dare to dream is what is there, dream to dare" is the voice of mine for myself ,as a youth , realizing the strength and making use of it will definitely revolutionize the definition of change, and with this perspective traveling from India to Bharat , I am standing here with my firm belief , courage which lies within , explore it and act …act …act. With the real facts , unveil the truth , with empathy , nor sympathy or apathy. Being a Gandhi fellow , I am on the path of unfolding myself, and then trying to see any kind of impact on others and thereby bringing the change. Here , my journey is my destination...with learnings whose basic input is self unfoldement. In these two years , as a Gandhi Fellow , my learning process will be strenthened day by day with real practical life experience. This experience put many questions, and two years will be the journey toward destination, of unfolding myself . I experiment ,therefore ,I am...

Sugandha

Gandhi Fellowship: From India to Bharat

Today I will,tomorrow i can !

Beyond the realm of armchair talk to walking grassroot realities

Jhunjhunu: More Than A Funny Sounding Word

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Thursday, October 2, 2008

A Voice Within... of a Gandhi Fellow

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