SUCHI

Dr. Shelia Benjamin of SCINDeA (previous post) wanted us to experience one of the 15 NGOs that comprise the SCINDeA network.  Therefore, we left the wonderful Yelagiri Hills and state of Tami Nadu for a short visit in villages outside of Chittoor in the state of Andhra Pradesh. 

We visited the NGO called SUCHI - Social Unit for Community Health Improvement.  Once again we were visited with a musical welcome pictured below.

After our wonderful welcome, we went inside to learn about the NGO.  SUCHI is a mixed group of women and men (mostly women)  that designs activities to promote quality life in marginalized communities in three areas:  health, education, and socioeconomic needs.  Since we were a group of teachers, SUCHI wanted us to witness their dedication to education by visiting several of their village schools.  We were then divided into three groups and were off to three different villages.  Pictures of my experience are below:

This is the school that my group visited.

We were amazed at the creatively low-cost objects they used for manipulative activities.  Here, students learned hands-on to identify fruit by placing painted bottle caps around a chalk outline until a shape emerged.

Fulbrighter Connie connects with some some of the local students.

It's amazing how one large room can server as a classroom, gym, cafeteria, and napping place.  Here a student climbs a rope hanging from the ceiling for a little kinesthetic activity.

Here, perhaps one of the cutest children ever, naps in a sheet hanging from the ceiling.

SCINDeA Welcome

After leaving Delhi, we flew to the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu and immediately took a long bus ride to a small town in the hills called Yelagiri Hills.  You may have read my earlier post on the summer festival I got to attend while in Yelagiri Hills, but I did not post on the purpose of visiting the town.

We went to Yelagiri Hills to visit the headquarters of an organization called SCINDeA.  The true name is:  South Central India Network for Development Alternatives.  In it's own words, SCINDeA is, "a Network of 15 field based NGOs initiated in March 1993 and working among the women, quarry workers, youth, children, tribals, dalits, fisherfolk and slum workers.   Of the 15 partner organisations 5 are headed by women." More information on SCINDeA can be found at http://www.scindea.org.

After receiving yet another garland of beautiful smelling flowers, we were ushered into the main meeting rooms where we were greeted by our hosts Dr.'s Sheila and Bennett Benjamin (heads of SCINDeA). We then spent the day in lectures on various topics. Our first lecture was a beautifully worded and executed lecture by Dr. Bennett on many topics from the history of Yelagiri Hills to nutrition and poverty in India and even a wonderful explanation of the caste system.

After lunch, Dr. Sheila educated us on the work of SCINDeA and it's 15 NGOs. During her lecture, she gave an example of one of the best examples of common rural cultural health misconceptions seen in India. For me it really helped me grasp where some of the poor were coming from. Let me try to capture the gist:

This misconception is about diarrhea. We know you need to drink plenty of water to stay hydrated and maintain normal bodily functions. We also know that when a person is experiencing diarrhea, increased fluids is the first step to combat the diarrhea. Culturally, rural Indians do not drink much water. They believe that the more your drink, the more you have going into your body. That equals more going out of the body. Therefore, they believe that if a person drinks water while having diarrhea, it will only get worse. The unfortunate side effect is that much of the infant and child mortality attributed to diarrheal diseases is actually a result of dehydration.

For the majority of the people in India, if a family member comes down with sever enough diarrhea to get treatment, it becomes a big deal. A person must forfeit and entire days wages to get to the nearest town with a doctor and wait in line for treatment. This often means that the person will no longer have the funds needed to provide food, so the person must go to a lender and barrow money. Now he has to pay the principle of the loan as well as the very much inflated interest just for that one doctor's visit. Often times, the only thing the doctor will tell a person is "drink more water" without explaining why. So, now the patient feels that the doctor does not care because in his mind the doctor wants him to have more diarrhea since he has to drink more water. So, he is now frustrated, finds the visit a waste of time, and won't go back for future health problems.

That is where NGOs, and organizations like SCINDeA come in. If only the rural villagers knew that a simple sugar/salt solution and increased fluids could prevent diarrhea, then the whole situation could have been avoided. So, these NGOs will organize educational programs to inform villagers why these fluids are needed, and then they are taught how to make a simple sugar/salt solution (to increase electrolytes).

I find this baffling; it's hard to think that this kind of education becomes the responsibility of the local people who care rather than the government as a whole. However, I also find this fascinating. the people of India are true survivors. They all work together to slowly battle some of India's worst problems.

Butterflies

In Delhi we visited Butterflies, an amazing organization dedicated to working with street children.  A staggering 20% of Delhi's population are child workers, many never get a chance to have an education.  Butterflies is an accredited educational institution that works very hard at meeting each individual child where they are at in order to provide an education. 

To Butterflies, "School" can mean a meeting on a sidewalk where reading and writing can be taught.  It could mean a bus parked nearby the main street selling areas where children are free to get on and learn during their "breaks" from work.  It could also mean providing a night shelter for street kids to live.  These shelters have meals, places to sleep, lockers for students, classrooms, and even computer labs.

This picture was taken at a night shelter.  Behind the boys lockers can be seen.  These lockers can be checked out for safe keeping of belongings.

At the shelter the main form of entertainment is TV

This is the classroom portion of the shelter, and it was also the first time we saw actual desks in an Indian classroom.

Here are two computers in their computer lab.  They took me way back!

Butterflies works with 1500 street children across Delhi, but it doesn't stop there.  There are over 135 branches across Southeast Asia in places such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Nepal, and others.  Not only do the students learn state curriculum, but also life skills such as banking.  Each shelter has a Children's Development Khazana (bank) to teach them money managing skills, budgeting, the importance of savings, basic accounting, and even loans.

The Khazana at the street shelter was opened especially for us to see how transactions were conducted...all student led.

The work that Butterflies does is incredibly hard to describe in a short blog.  They provide so many opportunities for the children on the street.  In addition to the education and banking described above, Butterflies also offers employment for some children to work at India's Childline (a helpline for lost and missing children).  The children also receive access to health care and vocational training.    We even learned that they publish their own newspaper called the Delhi Student Times, and they run their own BBC, Butterflies Broadcasting Company, with various media outputs.

This amazing organization is eager to work with American schools on various joint projects.  They would love to contact American students who can act as international reporters and write articles for the Delhi Student Times.  In addition, the Butterflies students could teach American students to set up their own Khazana.

For more information or contact, please visit www.butterflieschildrights.org

Typical Americans

I have about 10 minutes, so I'll make this very worthy story as short as possible.

The other night we were typical Americans abroad, but I swear we didn't do it on purpose.  Americans are usually viewed as loud and imbibing to foreigners, and that is exactly what we were in Madurai.

We were hosted by Lady Doak College for 4 nights, but our group was just a little too big.  Half the group roomed in the guest house at the college, and the other half stayed in town at a hotel.  The hotel had a wonderful rooftop bar with a gorgeous view of the ancient temple in the city.  So, we spent our evenings "decompressing" on the rooftop.  The first two were very casual and low key. 

Then, Lady Doak College asked us to preform something at the International Cultures Event that we were scheduled to attend.  This threw us for a loop, but ultimately we decided the best/easiest thing to do was to do the Cotton Eye Joe.  We had a bit of a problem with technology in trying to get the song, but eventually we did.  So, all we had left to do was practice.  We decided the rooftop bar was the best place to practice, and of course we needed to have a little alcohol in our systems to loosen up enough to actually practice.  Therefore, we were instantly transferred from a group of teachers researching the Millennium Development Goals to the loud Americans dancing and blasting music at a quaint bar.

The actual performance at the festival ended up being a blast, but no where near perfect.  The best part of the whole affair is that there is no documentation of it since we were all involved :)

Giving back

We have had a bit of down time and reflection lately, and our latest group discussion took place on the beach during an afternoon of fun at a wonderfully relaxing beach resort.  For the last several days, we have visited a lot of Non-government organizations (NGOs - like non-profits) that work toward the MDGs of empowerment of women and primary education for children.  These are the heart breaking, yet full of hope, stories you have read about with Mobile Crushes, Katha, and Ashram Orphanage.  I will be adding several more when the opportunity arises.

Our discussion has focused on what the organizations are getting from us.  We are not here to do charity, so we have not been making monetary donations.  We have been giving small gift bags with pencils, books, bracelets, key chains, etc.  However, our primary goal is to see ow these organizations are attempting to make a dent in India's pledge to meet the MDGs on time.

We were asked by the project coordinator Aditi, "What are we giving back to these organizations?"  Many group members feel that we have left these organizations wanting.  Some felt that it seemed they were looking for us to invest a large amount of funds, and they felt bad for not giving financial donations.  Others felt that spending time with the children just loving on them is a treat that they will remember for a long time to come.  Even more felt that making connections with group leaders and women will ultimately lead them to "give back" once we arrive back home.

Here is my take on it...
Through globalization, the world will eventually realize that India's problems are actually global problems.  These burdens are not for India to bear alone.  Otherwise, India's potential role in the global society will never be fully, or even partially, realized.  The best way we, the teachers on the Fulbright grant, can give back is to educate students year after year.  By teaching our students problem solving methods that have shown success on a small scale, the more foundation we give them to transfer these skills to a larger global setting in the future.  The challenge to teaching these skills will be to do it with empathy.  There is not "one solution" that will be able to address these problems, and the American way of addressing some problems (particularly universal primary education) will not work for the people of India.  Our students must be empathetic, they must learn the reality that India faces in order to begin to address issues on India's scale in ways that will actually work.

I hope that makes sense, and I invite all educators reading this blog to think about it.  Of course, another way we can give back is by posting about all these organizations for readers to read about.  Some readers out there are capable of donating some finances to these organizations.  If you are one of them, keep reading about all of them to see which one touches you most.  Then, follow the link that I provide to learn more about how you can get involved.

Yeligeri Summer Festival

I have posted so far about some of the organizations we have seen, and some of the lectures we have heard.  However, I haven't really posted on some of the fun we've had too.

While in Yeligiri Hills there happened to be a summer festival.  It is usually held in April or May, but had been postponed this year due to some political elections.  So, we lucked out.  Tourists from the whole valley area would trek up the mountain (about 4,000 feet) to attend the festival.  It was complete with food, entertainment, and scary rides (scary because they didn't look like anything I would be comfortable putting my own children on).

Here are a few pictures below that highlight the fun we got to have.

No festival is complete without balloons!

Yeligiri Hills has a quaint little lake, and the festival offered boat rides for festival goers.

The people were really nice and wanted to be in our pictures as much as we wanted to take pictures.  This family even tried to get me to take their daughter!

Fulbright photographer Robert the most interaction with locals.  As seen here talking to a father and daughter snapping a shot. 

Fulbrighters Rob, Gary, and Karen eat some fruit from one of the stands.

Fulbrighters Aditi, Natalie, Craig, and Karen eating more fruit.  They ate almost every fruit you could buy, and I'm pretty sure they still haven't figured out at least two of the fruits they ate.

Here's me with some local women who called me over to pose with them.

Brazilian Fulbrighter Noelle shakes her thing with the local girls in the big tent.

I myself danced, but for only a minute.

These were two of the girls we were talking to as they waited for their turn to perform on stage.  Almost all costumes were this beautiful and elaborate. 

People were so happy to have us there that security even allowed Robert to get on stage to take some pictures of the performers.

Hiatus

Sorry about the hiatus for the past several days.  I have been sick with a sore throat (like not able to eat more than 10 bites sore) and sinus issues.  That combined with a busy schedule, not a lot of free time, and spotty Wi-Fi have put me way behind in the blogging sphere.  Physically I am now on the mend.  Our very nice South India project consultant gave me some antibiotics, but I have to laugh at the process seeing as she would only give me enough pills for a day at a time, and then she decided after 4 days that I was done.  I guess it remains to be seen if I am getting better from those antibiotics or if I got a virus that has run its course.    

Since my last post we have left Delhi.  I did not get to blog about everything we did in Delhi yet, so I will be making those posts when I can get to them.  I figured this blog will go on way past my return date, so I can get to the various activities when I have time. 

When we left Delhi, we flew into Chennai and boarded a bus for a five hour drive into the hills.  This was a bit of a wake up call because in Delhi we had a nice large coach bus with enough room for every one of us to have our own row.  Not so much now!  We have a small 21 seater with a little trunk that doesn't even hold half our luggage.  Most of the bags are being strapped to the roof of the bus.  The bus is "air conditioned" in that air blows from two vent units, but somehow no one actually feels the air.  Therefore, I have secured myself a seat at the front so I can watch the road.  A small stuffy bus doesn't suit someone who gets motion sickness like me.

Anyhow, we spent two nights at Yeligiri Hills, one at Vellore, and we are now on our third night in Chennai.  Tomorrow morning we pack up again and head out for another town.

Stay tuned for posts on the many activities we have done during this time.  For now, ta ta (my paid Wi-Fi is almost up).

P.S.  For those who may have heard of some terrorist type activities in India, please know that we are not any where near them, nor will we be going to those areas.