by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 7, 2006 | Uncategorized
One of my favourite authors has been oriana fallaci. In her often acerbic and cutting words I have many a times found inspiration.
In her letter to a child never born, which is a commentary on life itself she says: ” to fight is much better than to win, to travel much better than to arrive: once you have won or arrived all you feel is a great emptiness… and to overcome your emptiness you have to set out on your travels again, create new goals..”
With a few alterations this could be a very apt description of what we are facing at pwhy today. True that we did not quite arrive or win, but we have reached moment in time when things have to be redefined and new goals set.
I always held that pwhy had to remain dynamic and adapt to situations. When I set this out, I was thinking of the programmes and the need to adapt them to field requirements, but today I see that they apply also to the management and running of the project.
In my quixotic belief that good was inherent in each one and just needed to be sought, I never thought that problems would arise from within the team. I guess I never imagined that there I would be faced with detractors and continued in my naive conviction that no one would want to do away with someone imparting education. But oh darling this is India, a land where the powerful can only retain their power riding on the shoulders of illiterate masses, and anyone daring to disturb this equation is enemy number one!
So we have reached an impasse, a state of perfect and unproductive immobility and we need to chart out the future. This was conveyed to team projectwhy and each section was told that they had to raise 50% of what was needed, and I would meet the other half.
I love my team, like you would a child, and I feel amused at how much they shy of asking, even if it is a rupee. Come on, old biddy, you are the one who changed their status, made them teachers, and now these mams and sirs take life seriously and begging – whatever the form is infra dig. What they need to comprehend is that seeking funds to empower and teach is the first step to acquiring freedom.
If they seek money for the work they do they actually create new jobs, new markets and opportunities for the area they work in over and above ensure that kids do not drop out. Now that is far more than they politician/bureaucrat duo do.
The challenge I face today is to make them understand that, to shake them out of their torpor and give them a set of new eyes to see the world in a different way, when they are the centre and the kingpin.
Not easy, but eminently doable as I myself was one of those who never asked for money, even the one that was owed to me. Today I have perfected the art of high tech begging.
So I set out on my travels again…
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 5, 2006 | Uncategorized
Kiran and Komal are sisters. One is 6 and the other 16 days! Kiran was born on the day pwhy took off on its maiden flight. It was a time of dreams and visions, of hope and determination. It was also a time when we believed that good will prevail, that people will understand and take their lives in their own hands..
We kept on dreaming though at times the dreams seemed sated, but we held on to them trying one option after the other, battling enemies we could not have conjured, even in our wildest fantasy. There were some dreams that came true: children stopped dropping out of school, we repaired a few broken hearts, and above all we found well wishers all over the world. But somehow the bad outdid the good and we realised that our main dream – that of sustaining the project from within the community – turned into a nightmare. Surreptiously we found ourselves dragged into the usual you give, I take; you provide, I receive, moving into a state of immobility.
Just as Kiran had heralded hope, Komal seemed to have a different role. Her little dark face and protruding tongue reminded one of Kali, the goddess who destroys evil and protects those who seek her. Was there a message that one had to take stock, redefine our dreams and start once again..
Who knows?
Welcome to planetwhy Komal.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 5, 2006 | Uncategorized
Strange that something I have always held as true is validated time and again, even when you pray that this one time one should be proved wrong.
When we set out to establish a model for education support in order to contain drop out rates, we wanted to evolve one that could be replicated and one that whit stood the test of time and space. Hence our decision to select local resources both human and material. Now if we were to go by school results as the only criteria of success, then we have been successful. But that is not enough as statistics published last week state that 100 000 children between 6 and 10 years of age are not in school in Delhi alone.
Were there many little clones of pwhy in all areas where we these kids are, than maybe things would be different. But that entails an in-built sustainability and that is where we have not done as well. Our efforts to seed and nurture the one-rupee programme has been a non starter.
My firm conviction that this is the ultimate weapon that would free children remains stubbornly in my mind. What seems to be the problem is our lack of competence in packaging and marketing the idea.
So I thought the time had come for a debriefing and the first step was to cross-examine myself. There are many things that happened along these six years that I could not have imagined. One is our frequent trysts with the labour courts and the other is the extremely passive attitude of some of our staff who refuse to take things in their hand and content themselves with doing what they think is their duty leaving me to raise funds for their ‘salaries‘! If many funders have been honest enough to ask what would happen after me, the staff members have not.
The fault is not with them; the fault lies in India’s reality where any social grouping is the reflection of the macro reality. What is good for the gander.. says the proverb. So all societal ills are very much part of our work, the ones that prevail across India, and the ones that are particular to Delhi. Divisive forces ready to play the caste/creed game, the sarkari (government) job syndrome which means goes by the credo: minimum work and maximum cribbing, the lack of motivation to take challenges and the plethora of dubious well wishers waiting to pounce of soft targets like us with the vilest accusations.
To be able to fine tune pwhy as a model, it has become imperative to take some tough steps in order to be able to turn the equation and make people want and seek our presence, be it parents or staff members.
The innumerable problems that plague India will not find a solution if they are addressed from the top only. It is only when things change at the micro level that programmes will percolate down and reach out the true beneficiaries. In the present scenario what is meant for the poor cleverly and insidiously hijacked..
It is time for some plain talking at pwhy, even if it means starting again, the difference being that this time all programmes will be initiated by the beneficiaries and nurtured by them.
I have resisted this many times, be it my ego, or my reticence that I had been wrong, or my innate and candid faith in the goodness of all beings, or my incapacity to assess the deviousness of my detractors, or my belief that my ways would prevail. I do not know.
Today I realise that, I too was a reflection or the macro reality, and that what was needed was to turn the tables.
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 5, 2006 | Uncategorized
A nomadic childhood meant many a school, but when I look back on those years, each school no matter where it was located, always had a teacher one remembers with fondness, someone you wanted to emulate, someone you looked up to!
Be it Melle Valent in France, Mr Studenmayer in Algiers, or Mere Jean Marie in Saigon, they all played their role in building what I am today. And though lost somewhere in the recesses of my brain, a simple trigger brings their faces to my mind and they validate the high esteem teachers are held in, in India.
That was the, things are not quite the same today. Students have scant respect for their teachers, and teachers are a far cry from any expectation. Welcome to 2006 India where teachers take bribes and students beat teachers to death!
My heart went out to little K who put her best and grownup dress to celebrate teachers’ day where she was to teach a class. K is 6 and still believes in good and right. My heart went out too to many pwhy primary students teaching their peers with commitment and maybe imagining themselves as teachers one day!
Who is to tell them that this may not happen as they are likely to drop out somewhere along the way.
In times where passing the buck and playing blameGame, I think one should stop and ask ourselves a simple question: how responsible are we for this state of affairs? And if we are honest then we will see that each one of us has a part to play in this sad scenario. Absent parents in search of materialistic eldorados, teachers who have turned learning into earning, a government elected by us and thus representative of our aspirations that has let children down..
The list is endless…
In times where education is often heralded as the panacea of all ills and the key to every door, we have forgotten the basic truth: that education is based on mutual respect between teachers and taught. Teachers are per se, the obvious role models of children, something that we have lost on the way. Like everything else, we first must address our shortcomings, only then will teacher’s day regain the meaning it was meant to have.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 4, 2006 | Uncategorized
The results of a recent survey indicates that India is the sixth most dangerous country in the world. Afghanistan, Palestinian territories, Myanmar and Chechnya were placed better than India.
Many will and even are contesting these results, and even if we do better, there is much that is not the way it should be on planetIndia!
The first thing that caught my attention as this news was being aired and commented upon was the fact the welfare ministry would be consulting the labour ministry to determine what a child is! The UN convention says 18 and below, our labour ministry says 14 and below, rape laws say 16 and below… now if we were to go by the UN then we are talking of 42% of our population, unfortunately only very few are voters!
The factors that were given were physical violence of any kind (outside or within the family); mental violence; displacement; sexual abuse and trafficking; early marriage; child labour; a lack of formal identity, including birth registration; the absence of parental care; detention without sufficient cause; a lack of freedom of expression; discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity or disability; poverty; HIV/AIDS and other diseases; a lack of vital services (including education and health care)
When i look around me, at the kids of pwhy many of the above factors fit like a glove. So whether we are 6th or 66th, Indian children are not given their basic rights. And those who try and do something are hounded and harassed till they give up. the laws that are made for them, are often eyewash, as no proper roadmap is made let alone followed.
So where is the solution one may ask? Well like for everything else I believe it has to come one step at a time from the grassroots by creating simple models that raise awareness and make people responsible.
Seems like our law makers and protectors have forgotten the children of India. It is for us to make them remember that they too exist. It is time to take a serious look at them and do something.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 4, 2006 | Uncategorized
And the combat ceased, for want of combatants.
Le Cid (IV, 3).
These words from a play long forgotten sprung to my mind this morning. Live every child put through the French system. Corneille is a must and often the play selected is Le Cid, where a tragic hero finds himself caught between his love and his duty as a result of a series of events outside his control. One is reminded of the doubting Arjuna in the beginning of the Mahabharata.
Both are compelled to follow their duty and fight someone dear. In the case of the French hero, the battle ends as for want of combatants!
I find myself in much in a similar situation where a series of events seem to have snowballed pushing me inside a labyrinth I cannot find the exit of. What makes it worse is that the enemy is invisible but powerful using simple minds as Machiavellian weapons.
Nowhere does the law say that one cannot terminate someone’s service. There must be hordes of people having lost jobs for various reasons, and none of them seem to have been meat for shady Trade Unions as these as well as the labour inspectors are well fed by factory owners and other employers who break every law with impunity.
I find it strange that a tiny organisation, who pays minimum wages as per law, and goes beyond what is expected to be present when people are in need, finds itself accused of vile and reprehensible things at every step. How can we be a danger to anyone, or are politicians and slum lords scared of the awareness we spread?
From providing women, to pocketing funds, I have done it all. I wish I had the wisdom and the ability to laugh it off, but pwhy is a child I have created with love and hardwork, possibly the best things i have done in my life, and I cannot distance myself.
Sometimes I think of locking it up but I know that this is exactly what my detractors want. But when I imagine, even for an instant, pwhy closed I realise that it will mean shattering many dreams, dreams you see in the picture above: young girls will drop out of school, babies will be back on the street, manu will not have any playmates, nasreen will not be able to dance to celebrate Independence day, and young Sunil will have to beat iron all his life.
Many may say: so what, there are millions like them ? My answer is simply, yes but if millions like us took the first step then things may change. Some of my staff, feeling extremely dejected this morning, asked me why were such things happening. I just answered that it was simply a micro reflection of the macro reality of India, and it was imperative to set the micros right so that the macro can change.
Our battle cannot cease, we are its combatants and everyone who has believed and supported us. If it ceases, that it mean that there is no hope for a better tomorrow. The enemy has to be worn down and won over. And if you ask why, then my answer is simple: Manu cannot go back to begging on the streets, his body infested by maggots, Nasreen has to dance at every celebration and Sunil must have a choice in life.
This combat will continue, even it there is only one combatant.
