Able Miller

(17th April 2008)The Last Day of the Learning Journey Narrated By Able Miller;

It Was Very Warm in the Breakfast room as the group came in one by one to hurriedly help them selves to break fast and then continuing to prepare their final arrangements as it was preplanned that the group would split today with some making a return tour back to Chennai to catch the flight home whilst some were to remain in Chennai and it was apparent that the group was reluctant for this moment.

Finally after tearful and heart breaking goodbyes, the group departing for Chennai departed at approximately (12:00) Twelve pm. The group soon settled in the bus and everyone was chatting and viewing the somewhat chaotic transport system which amazingly did not produce any accidents but a lot of close shaves.
The group was able to view the amazing scenery in between the built up areas and all was going well when somehow the driver who seemed to be intrigued by our group director Richard, suddenly realised he had to negotiate anther close shave, and recklessly changed gears, there was a grown from the gear box and the driver continued to drive in third gear as if nothing had happened until we reached Poonjeri where we had a scheduled lunch stop at GRT Temple Bay. We all had a very lovely lunch in the most beautiful setting one could imagine, there was a lot of joyful banter as the group had their lunch. After lunch it was then revealed by the bus driver that the bus was no longer fit to continue the journey, and as the next step of the journey was to tour the stone carved temples alternate transport had to be arranged for the tour and for the rest of the journey to Chennai. The tour of the Temples was an amazing trip and between trying to convince the local population that we did not want to buy some of their wares we managed to take some pictures and finally return to the Resort.

A short while after our arrival at the resort the alternative transport arrived to take us to Chennai and after a quick shuffle of our luggage we were soon on our way again, but this time it was beginning to get dark and the traffic as we approached Chennai became very heavy and it was a slow journey which ended mercifully at 19.15pm a quarter past seven in the evening. As soon as the bags were offloaded the group had a brief meeting in the reception area where it was decided everyone was to meet at 8pm, for our last supper together, this was enjoyed at the local KFC.
After returning to the star hotel, the group gathered in the hotel reception to say their goodbyes and dually parted.

Then there was one!!

So it sounds as though you all had an eventful trip home. Starting with breaking down and on your way back to Chennai and having to be squashed into a really small bus, victoria where on earth did you fit your suite case? Then having a last meal of KFC, Lance then spending the next 12hours not being very well on the plane, arriving in England without his luggage and John missing his flight. I have been told that Lance's luggage went home via Korea of all places. I guess from the begining to the end I should have known that we would be dramatic travellers!


So the last few days has been really strange without you all. The weather is scorching and I really haven't stopped sweating since I left the comfort of the air conditioned hotel. I went back to see Joss at the re-forestation project in Auroville, and I am now going to go over and do some work with him for a little while. This also means living in the forest with the animals, he also mentioned something about milking cows, as long as they don't wee on me or make me collect their urine for fertiliser it should be alright. I will keep you all updated with my movements, and when I next sit down at the computer I will but up an entry for the last few projects that we visited.


I hope that you are all doing really well. i have started to upload my pictures on to my flickr account http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucyindia/ feel free to use them as you wish

Love

Lucy

Ps just to make you all cry again here are my words from the reflection,


"I have come to understand that you don't have to go half way across the world to find inspiration, there is plenty of it close at home. You just have to go halfway across the world to realise it. For me the group have been really inspirational, you have offered me support and comfort at difficult and emotional times, I have been given the chance to learn about your work and your beliefs and seen India through 15 pairs of eyes. I will truly miss you all, you are wonderful people, go back and continue to do all your good work, for you are doing what they are doing in India, improving peoples lives"

Where has everyone gone?

Its Fri 18th Apri 2008, and the end of our journey is upon us . Most of the group plus Richard & Pooja left last night for Chennai, Lucy , Marilyn Nynke an I are spending our last day in Pondy ( correction Lucy is lucky enough to be here for many more months !)
Partly it feels ike we only arrived yesteday but we have packed so much learning, discussion, sharing of ideas both with the Indian host projects we visited but also with one another and the Indian NGO reps ( Matt I never knew what an NGO was until day 2 I can now confess!), without sounding Poncy in Pondy it truly has been a wonderful experience
I will have mnay memories but in particular the strong and courageous people we met at Dreamcatchers, many young women who lost their husbands in the Tsunami., also the young beautiful Muslim woman who couldnt go to school as her parents deemed her to be too tall??? The look of pride and excitement on her face when we had the Sat reflection session , I will never forget, I hope our plan to get some people over to the UK comes off, and I cant wait too see her engaging with Naz and her project in Birmingham
My only slight anxiety aboaut the trip before we set off was about spending 2 weeks with in reality strangers. Others worried about how they would handle , food, dirt, povery etc, thankfully everyone took immediately to the people , the warmth ( including fab temperatures) , the crazy streets ,and I suddenly realised that our differences from DJ's to Ex Zimbabwean MPs' to some Norn Iron girl trying to get us all doing Yoga every morning was indeed v good planning on behalf of Richard &Pooja ( I never dared call you Judy to your face Pooja !)
I genuinely learnt from all of you and hope the conversations and plans we discussed come to fruition
Oh and Rangers are stil in the UEFA CUP
Ove and out and remember a deadline....

PRM, ‘Panchayat RAJ Movement’ is a NGO based on the east coast of India. It was set up in 1989 to address the issues of sustainable agriculture in the landless farming communities of the Dalit people who are the most marginalized people within India and the ‘caste system’

The ‘caste system’, is evident all over India and like the different classes in Europe is a way to separate the rich from the poor and maintain that divide and predates 400 bc. It has only been in relative recent history that real efforts have been made to bridge these divides. In 1950 India first began the process of recognizing the major social problems the caste was having on the poorest communities the Dalit’s. Today traveling around India especially within the Dalit communities it is hard to imagine the constitutional change India made over half a century ago has had any impact. People still live in slum conditions seemingly banished from basic human rights and reliant on external aid to survive. If impact is measurable then I really cannot imagine how hard pulling together, a life, family and community would have been prior. These divides within the classes have paralyze and imprisoned the Dalit people through out history it is so engrained in the way of life that the prejudices are still the masters.

Mr Jeevanandham the founder of PRM has been pioneering sustainable and ecologically friendly farming systems for over 20 years within the example village we were shown some apparent and possitve outcomes. He took us on a tour of one of the projects PRM works with in the Pudukkattai district of Tamilnadu. The Dalit community on the out skirts of Andakkulam set up the WOFM ‘woman’s organic farming comity’ with the aid of PRM directly after the tsunami in 2003 in a move to help empower the Dalit people.

On the 24th of December 2003 this small farming community, although 1.5 km from the sea, was submerged in 15ft+ of salty sea water. Even though the water came and went in just ten minutes it caused devastation all over the world, destroying then dragging back out to sea anything and everything it could. The immediate damage to the community was shattering and the aftermath had huge disabling consequences on this community.

The Dalit are nearly all landless people and rely on leasing or renting the land they live on. In this instant the WOFC pay rent in the form of agricultural produce to the Temple. As a marginalized people their voice is hardly heard with in the local government, the Panchayat. Getting aid and tackling major social problems is arduous and is often a futile waste of time. The government provided the Dalit farmers, after several months, minimal aid in the form of 4000rs and 2 sacks of rice. This was hardly enough to feed and rebuild a community who still had to scrape together the money to pay their rent.

Directly after the tsunami the lands had become saturated in salt and were un- farmable, the Dalit farmers were informed by government scientists it would be 5 years before farming would be successful again, another blow. PRM saw the despair as an opportunity not only to help bring these people out of what a seemingly hopeless situation, but also use this as a chance to create something using the sustainable farming models they had developed to help empower the people.

PRM’s immediate focus was to help the farming Dalit community to clear the farming lands of the sand and Debary. This led onto the introduction of new sustainable farming methods. PRM worked with WOFC to develop organic fertilizers pesticides and composts that would reintroduce the valuable nutrients needed to make farming successful. Previously the community had been fully dependant on costly chemicals. The new low tech process that use readily available raw materials not only has a initial financial saving but also in time will enable the community to enter into a potentially more lucrative organic market.

PRM have created hope in a community were there was none, In one of many conversations with the people of the village one woman said “PRM helped to give us the confidence we had lost to make these changes, now the people now have plans and ambition”.

We were shown around the village and homes of the Dalit farmers who gave demonstrations of their work; unwanted fish, an array of local plants, cow manure and urine, milk, raw sugar the unusual list of ingredients for the various potions goes on… Really though, the most exciting thing to see was the glowing pride the people had. It is a humbling experience seeing people with honour and pride not only manage to live of almost nothing, but bring them back from utter devastation.

Visit to Pathway

By Lance

The approach road to pathway is along which leads to an incongruous building at the bottom. A sign denotes “pathway dental and medical centre for the mentally retarded” which was not really a good sign. However once you enter to the building and meet Mr prasad and his wife who are co-directors of pathway you soon realise that something much more significant is being delivered here.

Pathway started in 1975 with just 2 children but now provides care to 100 boarding children and 200 day children. Since its inception it has provided care to over 22,000 children. The centre provides education, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and arts and crafts. the older children and young adults work in a printshop and a bakery on site as well as in a furniture manufacturing factory. They provide full time employment to 61 people with learning disabilities which makes then the largest employers of people with learning disabilities in India.

Pathway also runs an agrocentre in a rural setting 90k away which provides care and education for other 220 children who undertake farming activities self sufficient.

Our overall impression was of a small group of individuals who have committed themselves to delivering a brighter future for a group of children who are largely ignored by the state and rest of the population. You could not help but be touched by the drigt smiles you encounter in every room and by the comminment of the staff to optimise the ailities of each and every child. This was a very stimulation and impressive start to our indian journey.

9th April

By Naz

I've been quite detached since arriving in India, I'm here but my soul has not really connected until today. The day started with a group reflection of the time we have spent so far. It was quite obvious of some tensions that had surfaced amongst the group. In a way I was glad that as a group we had moved on past the pleasantries and small talk. Reality had kicked in on who we are as individuals and why we are here. I was not disappointed about this but hopeful that as a group we would rise to the challenge of being outside our comfort zones, tolerance and knowing we care about each other although we express it in different ways.

The afternoon was free time. Some group members decided to go for a massage and pamper themselves, a well deserved treat. I had no plans and so decided to spend it with Lucy a brave soul that is planning on staying in Chennai for 6 months. We visited the project that she will be working on. Suddenly i felt excitement and the real experience of what it would be like working in India. I felt stretched outside my own comfort zone, no air conditioning or big meals we have been enjoying since arriving. Would I be able to do what Lucy was embarking upon? We talked about how we would cope and the mental reprogramming of our minds that would be needed to survive. Thank you Lucy for sharing this experience with me.

In the evening we were privileged to meet other social entrepreneurs from India. As I listened to the various presentations I had a flashback to where I started. I felt grateful to Unltd for picking me up and valuing my work. For defining who I am as a social entrepreneur when I felt isolated and felt I did not belong. Now i was in a room full of like minded people, doing amazing work for social causes.

I got married last week and as a new bride my friends where surprised that as a feminist why I would do such a thing. An opportunity to explore a relationship past the point I had experienced before would have been to deny stepping outside my comfort zone. This is the place where most social entrepreneurs like to live. The feminist inside me is overwhelmed by womens achievements in India, in some cases even more progressive than in the communities I work with back in Birmingham. My amazing husband will only support me to do this work even further and is encouraging me over text messages, even though I should be spending this time with him as a newly wed! (Husband, I miss you very much!) I just wanted to take this moment to pray for all the group and our loved ones we have left behind. May they be happy and well and may the rest of our journey be fulfilling and purposeful.

Love, light & peace, Naz x

10th April

By Victoria

Having lost my voice this morning I am thinking about the women and children all over the world whose voices are not heard and what Vana (our local guide) told us about the Tamil Nadu pancharat having no women in them so they had no representation after the Tsunami when they were actually the ones who suffered the most loss of life. This made it especially poignant when we visited the Dreamcatchers Project at SEA which actually had a lot of representation from women. When the SEA project started in 2000 there was only 20% of people who completed education and this drop-out rate got worse after the Tsunami because the funders provided boats for every fisherman which needed 4 people to run it so the children were being taken out of school to help with fishing. SEA created a Parent-Teacher Association to improve literacy and the drop-out rate and this work has increased so much that they have now organised a children's parliament for 56 villages in their area. SEA support in excess of 5000 children in the district including the lower caste – the so-called 'untouchables'.

After hearing this information we went through the work that the Dreamcatchers organisation does with SEA and we each said our name along with an action which everyone then repeats in order to learn each others name. I thought it was an empowering exercise because it gave validity to everyone and I could see it having real benefits for Stretch & Play with some of the shyer or younger children I work with who find it difficult to say who they are and to be proud of themselves. The second ritual was a “hopes and offerings” exercise which involved everyone receiving a flower which they placed into a bowl at the centre of the room. Again, this was difficult for me because I couldn't speak and it was doubly difficult for Juliet who had to translate for me! After everyone had placed their hopes and offerings into the centre we stood in a circle holding hands.

I commented that the exercise was good for illiterate children because I would do something similar at home “hopes and expectations” which involves flipchart paper and pens and can cause problems for people who cannot read or write. In this exercise everyone's words are valid. Lance thought that it was good because it made the adults awkward and the children comfortable so would bring everyone to the same level. the staff of Dreamcatchers explained that the exercise was done for 3 reasons: 1.leadership for children and to relieve the frustration or fear felt by the children in the aftermath of the Tsunami 2. to help the children improve their levels of deep thinking and 3. t0o bring the group together. In addition to this exercise Dreamcatchers use a number of different facilitation techniques such as a talking circle where everyone's words are important and which allows the most marginalised to speak. Juliet explained that when Dreamcatchers first started working in the area they were focusing on healing in the aftermath of the Tsunami but now, 4 years later, they are focusing on leadership skills and abilities and have trained a lot of the local women and children through intergenerational work.

This was especially empowering for me because I believe that there is a lack of intergenerational work in the UK which leads to suspicion and mistrust from both youth and their elders towards each other. The work that the women are doing at SEA is artistic healing rituals where they create embroidered pictures and hanging garlands. The additional benefit of this healing work is that they are creating products which can then be sold to tourists as a micro-enterprise. The women themselves were given a chance to speak and they had some wonderful words of inspiration for us. The talking carried on long into lunchtime when the women crowded around Matt and he even got himself a new girlfriend!

Then it was back on the bus for the long, long journey to Tranquebar and Bungalow on the Beach. However we talked so much that the time flew in and we left Nynke behind at one stage so apologies for that!