Support Education in Rural India

After 1.5 years of fundraising and dedicated building, with frequent stoppages due to covid lockdown, outbreaks, and the blessings of a great monsoon, " New Thamarai" finally opened with an inauguration ceremony attended by 150 people online & in-person on March 7th. It was wonderful to have friends with us from around the world as this endeavor has truly been a labor of love by so many friends and family. With great happiness, the first classes began on March 17th which ended 15 years of operating our after-school programs in temporary locations, giving long-term security for our current educational programs, ensuring their sustainability.

The project became possible with land offered by Auroville Foundation and a local and international support structure, financial support of Electric aid Ireland, students from Kedge college in France, and many fundraising events by friends and family. The building was constructed by a team of local masons and tradespeople, many were youth. Most of the labor for the sports ground was offered voluntarily by Thamarai and local youth teams who also contributed funds to buying floodlights and some cricket material

What was particularly interesting working on this project was:

1) How the children stepped forward. During a leadership in action program, they identified issues in their village they wanted to change such as low water levels, plastic waste management, lack of play areas, vegetation, the prevalence of groupism, and low nutritional levels. Their inputs became a key part of project design and lead to the implementation of 100% recycled plastic doors (made, in part, from waste, they had collected), rainwater harvesting/reuse of wastewater, edible plants, fruit trees, and flowering shrubs, compressed earth bricks, a wood-fired oven, playground, and sports field.

2) How groupism and status among youth can fragment energy and the learning and unity that emerges when we work together, concentrating on the greater good. At these moments we identify background conversations with self-reflection and practicing tools to overcome minor conflicts to unite towards well-being for all. We use practices from https://www.radicallytransform.org/

3) To see when we invest in people and create opportunities how caste and class barriers can slowly dissolve. We have created a center and sports area that is a slightly high spec for village standard including fiber optic cables. As this is a Dalit village, it is stigmatized however there are now families from many surrounding villages sending their children to the learning center. Our attendance is increasing steadily and currently, 40% of children come from other villages. Our local team and children love to see new people coming. Values such as equality, full potential, and well-being guide our operations, and the children and youth know it is their place. We also have friends from around the world who are voluntarily offering their skills to coach the children online on various subjects giving us a very rich cross-cultural learning environment, this has been made possible with the stable internet fiber optics. It will be a strategy for us, as we move forward on other projects, to locate in the most marginalized sections of the village in order to foster equality and dignity instead of caste and class differences.

We are midway with the project and hope to complete stage 2 by December 2021, which will be two more classrooms, toilet block, kitchen, boundary wall, and landscape.

What is most important is how this development is creating an enabling environment that will bring opportunity, new futures and, we hope, a thriving community for many years to come.

Links:

• Thamarai web site

Happily Reconnecting

Laughter and greetings rippled through Thamarai Learning centres on Monday evening November 23rd as our older children and facilitation team had a heartwarming reunion. After 8 months of a voice-only connection on the daily learning phone calls, we could at last meet again at the centres and have socially distant learning activities together. The students have grown so tall and excitedly met their friends from neighbouring villages and their youth facilitators, Akash expressed how excited he was and how he had waiting for this moment for so long. The atmosphere is a little different now that we are behind masks and sit further away from one another but we are all adapting and spirits are high.

As schools are still closed we have the luxury of a homework-free environment where we inquire into what the students love to learn and what areas they have difficulty with so we can assist them. Being back in Thamarai students have access to plenty of educational books, films and games, laptops, and internet connectivity but most of all each other and their big brother and sister facilitation team who serve their community by stimulating the student's appetite to learn and in turn learn and grow themselves. The word Thamarai means lotus flower, together we aspire to unfold to our full potential.

A few days ago cyclone Nivar blew up quite a storm here but last night, November 30th, was Deepam, the festival of light, celebrated in South India. We researched together about the festival and each drew our impressions with coloured pens and pencils. Soft lights of butter lamps, brightly lit homes, festival sweets and temples emerged through the drawings. We all lit lights, placed them around our centre, ate sweet snacks and gathered in a circle to sing and acknowledge the light that is in each one.

We look forward to a light filled new cycle of learning and growing ahead. Stage 1 of our new centre (a classroom with outdoor play and sports area) will be ready by mid January. Then we will start to put our efforts into a further two classrooms so the Annai Nagar children will have a light filled, permanent home for joyful learning in the centre of their village. We are grateful for the support we receive from people all around the world who want to make this dream come true too .

Links:

• Thamarai web site
• Thamarai on instagram

• Annual report (PDF)
  
• Learning centre development project brief (PDF)