August of 2014.
Asha-Kiran gave us the opportunity to work in its projects. Uncertainty, nervousness, excitement, enthusiasm... so many emotions beforehand. The adventure began, India was waiting us and opened its doors to us.
“Namaste”: I know the place where love, peace and goodness resides. I know the place where if you live there in yourself and I live in there in myself, we will both be one.
And from this place, from its homes and Centers, from its women and children, from the office, from the traffic and the rickshaws’ hellish noise... from that place called India, we were able to do what we like, to teach and learn.
Every morning we got to know one of the Day Care Centers. There, we worked early stimulation of babies and offered recreational and cooperative activities so that the teachers could use them in their classrooms in relation to math, reading and morals. Every school, every child, every teacher, every life... awakened more interest in us and we were more eager to continue learning about this unknown and yet neighboring world. If at the same time we could contribute something with our ideas and experience... what more could we ask for?
After some spicy food to raise our spirits and not miss a nap (who would want to waste time sleeping?), we went to the Community Center, an open, living Center where work is done with children and women from the slum. Here our work, our beautiful work, focused on women. We did games, dances and cuisine sessions with them. Sometimes the colors of their saris moved to the rhythm of rumba and smelled like Spanish omelette. Other days, our pale bodies did Bollywood dances and enjoyed the smell of spice.
For a week we also got to know the work at Yashodhara. It is a Home and a school where peasant children live and study, as well as children in situations of extreme vulnerability. In this beautiful place, sheltered by Nori and Nora (two towering mountains), we experienced the monsoon daily.
We worked with students with a Tangram and made several psychomotor sessions, but perhaps, the most important work was the training day for teachers who work here every day. We met with them, we came to know their education system more in depth and we showed them different play strategies to teach mathematical concepts. Without any doubt, the best part of this experience was to live in a beautiful place sharing food, prayers, rain and games with them - hence its beauty.
We are still not sure what we brought to them. However, we have brought everything back from India. Its noise, mayhem, and the enthusiasm they never forget to share. The experience of a calmness unknown to us up no now and unthinkable in the midst of such chaos.
Something binds us to India, something keeps us there. An experience full of life, emotions and heartbeats.
2014 Volunteer Team.
Civil organizations state that over a million people’s job is to empty latrines in India. They collect and transport the stools by hand without any protection, in a country where 597 million people have no toilets. They all belong to the most marginalized caste in the country, the Dalits or untouchables. Although the class division system was abolished in India in 1950, it still exists in practice.
In spite of attempts to end this work by the government, various organizations and the international community, they “have been derailed by discrimination and local complicity”, according to the South Asia director of Human Rights Watch. “People work emptying latrines because they assume that their caste must fulfill this role and usually can’t get any other jobs”, she says.
HRW has found that women do not receive wages in cash but food scraps, some grain at harvest time, used clothing or access to land for cattle, always at the discretion of the families they serve. Intermon Oxfam reported that those who do receive a salary usually do not get more than 30 rupees (0.50 €) per toilet per month. The children of these workers do not get an education because of their extreme poverty, and many of those who are enrolled in school end up dropping out due to severe discrimination.
Human Rights Watch also warns of the health consequences that collecting fecal matter entails - nausea, headaches, respiratory and skin diseases, anemia, diarrhea, vomiting, jaundice, trachoma and carbon monoxide poisoning, to name a few. The NGO wants the new government to undertake a comprehensive assessment of all agreements in force intended to offer this caste financial aid, scholarships, legal assistance, etc.
However, what needs to be changed so that the enforcement of laws is not hindered are the entrenched cultural patterns of a society that divides itself in people of more or less worth. Despite being a slow process, this must be done with the people themselves irrespective of caste so that the boundaries of this social division may progressively become less rigid.
Source: elpais.com
The teamwork done in the month of August between Asha-Kiran and a group of Spanish Volunteers consisted in bringing creative and leisure activites to our beneficiaries. One of them, the clown show, was a complete success among the children and their families. The aim of this activity was for children from the Day Care Centers at the construction sites as well as those from the slum community to laugh and have a good time.
The volunteers made everyone enjoy a visual display of comedy without the use of language, yet this was not an obstacle to convey universally funny situations. There were infants, young children, adults and elderly people in the public. Some of the infants were scared of the clowns at first but soon became comfortable with the help of the teacher and her helper.
The Volunteers stressed that it is good have surprises for the children, not only for enjoyment but also to interest them what the Centers have to offer and to encourage them to welcome new experiences.
The Literacy Classes restarted on a regular basis in August. All of the girls who are now attending come from the Lemon-Chili community, where adults as well as children sell lemon and chili on the streets -believed to be protective charms- to make a living.
The girls were fascinated with the books, slates, blackboard, chalk, teacher, etc. In the one of the Adolescent Sessions, they manifested their interest in learning numbers, letters, reading, writing, etc. After attending for a full month, all the girls were very happy that they had started the Literacy Classes.
