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!