A Centre for Learning at Sittilingi Village

Hope all of you are healthy and well.

As this year draws to a close, one only hopes this will be remembered as an unusual event and this will not become the norm in the future!

“The real tragedy would be if we come through this pandemic without changing for the better. It would be as if all those deaths, all that suffering would mean nothing.”

– Poet and novelist, Ben Okri, in The Guardian.

Effects of the Pandemic

The virus does not seem to have an obvious physical presence in our valley – as yet! The disease spread here has been nil or negligible. Of course, one is not completely certain as very few have been tested for covid here. So either everyone here has escaped the virus or many of us have been asymptomatic till now.

Socio – economic impacts of the lockdown

These are manifold and will continue to impact the valley for many years to come. In the last newsletter we had written about the rural tribal community’s ability to grow their own food and resilience to withstand deprivations.

But the actual economic impacts of the lockdown have been starkly felt in the villages only from July/August. Other than people working in Thulir, THI and related institutions no one else in the villages had any cash in hand. Most were already bogged down by earlier loans and struggled to pay their monthly dues. So though we had good rains in July/August, people didn’t have money to start the planting or hire tractors to plough their fields. More loans at exorbitant rates were taken out from private moneylenders to start farming. Fortunately most people are growing food crops this season.

Farmers of SOFA were unable to market their turmeric and other produce during the initial lockdown phase. But our network of friends gave them a hand and bought generously. To browse and purchase SOFA products please >> click here

The Panchayat team spent a lot of time sorting out irregularities in the MGNREGA scheme and has started work under the scheme in two villages.

Artisans of the Porgai craft association also didn’t have access to thread and cloth as well as their normal markets during the lockdown. They have risen to this challenge by very creatively up-scaling, recycling, coming up with new products and setting up an online market.

You can support them by treating yourselves to some of their artwork. >> Contact Porgai

Construction Artisans

Construction artisans too had no work or income during the lock-down and kept requesting us to start construction work. Group activities at public institutions and spaces were still forbidden at the time. We could not start construction work at school. So from the beginning of July we started construction activities around our house at the old Thulir campus, dismantling old unused buildings and repairing and renovating others, while taking due covid prevention measures.

From September, as the lockdown was relaxed, we started construction work at school. The caretaker’s cottage has been upgraded and a storeroom for construction materials and tools is being built. The frequent rains this year often delayed this work. But we hope to build two staff quarters and a dining hall this academic year.

Store room construction at the school.

Construction at SOFA.

Educational impact

“The Pandemic has moved us from a Digital Divide to what some have called a Digital Partition.”

– P Sainath

This pandemic has deepened the urban-rural, educated-uneducated and digital-nondigital fissures among us. The disease spread has been more in urban areas and negligible in rural areas but in many ways the rural students suffer more. Students in Sittilingi and other rural areas have no smart phones or laptops and little or no internet access. Lack of space to study or guidance at homes make it even more difficult for them. These students are being left behind in the world of virtual education. Families that are struggling to put together two balanced meals a day are under great pressure to invest in smart phones and laptops.

Decentralised classes

To help educate our children while complying with lockdown rules of not having large gatherings in institutions, we have been holding decentralised classes for children in their own villages. Children from other private and government schools also attend. These classes happen in nine locations. Children have been divided into small groups and each group meets the teachers twice a week. Class 10 students from Sittilingi government school attend classes conducted by Ram every afternoon.

Class in Sittilingi.

Class in Naikuthi.

Worksheets and books from the library are given to the children after instructing them on how to handle them. Teachers work though the week taking classes, preparing activity sheets and learning materials, growing vegetables and millets in the campus and attending teacher training sessions. This break has also been an opportunity for teachers to read, reflect, plan and improve their skills. We hold regular teachers training sessions every week.

Class in Palakuttai.

Class in Rettakuttai.

Internet Access

Till recently the hospital had the only broadband connection in the valley. The rest of us struggled with highly erratic 2G mobile data. Mr. Ansari and team from Digital Empowerment Foundation have helped us with the internet access in the old campus and the school by extending the broadband connection from the hospital using wireless network devices. It still develops glitches frequently but on the whole, our connectivity has vastly improved now.

Coming Home

Karadi Tales and the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI) have recently launched a series of story books based on real stories of rural India. In this series a storybook called “Coming Home” has been launched, this book is based on Priti David’s article about Thulir in PARI >> Read More

 Sakthivel’s Marriage

We are happy and sad at the same time. Happy that Sakthivel has married Swetha from Bengaluru. Sad that he is leaving for Bengaluru. Sakthivel has been an integral part of Thulir, first as a student and then as an administrator. We will miss him.

We wish both of them complete happiness together and hope they will come back to Thulir eventually.

Thank you all for your outpouring of solidarity, generosity and support which helped us wade through this difficult year!

Maybe this painful pandemic can give birth to a new year filled with consciousness, a consciousness of the unity of life, a consciousness of caring and sharing and a consciousness of all life and love. Wishing you all just such a wonderful new year!

Here is a short poem, written by our friends Sunder and Sonati from Thekambattu.

I wear my privilege
On me
Like an endi shawl
Wrapped tightly
About my shoulders
To keep out the cold
But just as
An endi shawl
Can wrap itself around
And warm
More than one person
I find that
I can use my privilege
For others
And the warmth
Of you warming others
And others warming you
Is privilege indeed.

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Hope all of you are safe, well and healthy.

This newsletter is an attempt to reach out to you in solidarity at a time when all of us, whoever we are and wherever we are in the world, are affected in varying degrees by the same microorganism!

Our hearts go out as we pay homage to the thousands of workers and their families rendered jobless, homeless and foodless in this pandemic, and to the thousands who have lost the battle with the virus.

This pandemic has brought to light the best and worst in all of us simultaneously. It has reminded us of our oneness with all life, reinforced our interconnectedness and shared humanity, brought out all our empathy and  kindness. But on the other hand it has amplified our fears and selfishness, deepened the existing fissures, highlighted the borders and strengthened the divisiveness among us. The vulnerable among us have been made more so.

“When the virus does not care about our divisions of borders, ethnicity, colour, or race and religion, why do we?” – Tejas Gambhir

Pongal celebrations at the new school

Lock down measures

Rural self sufficient communities – the future?

This lockdown has made us realise that rural communities like Sittilingi are in many ways more resilient than modern urbanised society. The tribal value of consuming less and making do with whatever meager resources are available has stood us in good stead now.

According to a  2019 survey by THI, 75 percent of families in Sittilingi Valley own land and 81 percent are engaged in agricultural  activities. Most importantly, people still grow their own food. Only 8.7 percent of families have at least one member migrating outside to earn money.

All over the world, experts are now talking about the possibility of an economic recession due to the lockdowns. In times like this people in urban areas are unsure of employment and financial security in the years to come. Having your  own land and growing your own food provides one with basic security in these uncertain times.

Dr. Regi and Dr. Lalitha, shifting out to a rural area and initiating  community activities has made quality health care available at our doorsteps. This is especially useful now when all the government primary health centres are tied up with corona duties.

Community measures

We have been supporting the Panchayat (local government) in whatever small ways we could in their proactive measures in maintaining physical distancing and spreading awareness. Read more >> here

We hope the community maintains this level of unified and mature action when the valley actually receives its first Covid cases!

Construction and allied artisans

The construction artisans trained by Thulir were working on building eco- friendly buildings for other NGOs and friends outside. With the lockdown and consequent stopping of all building activities they are back home without work and income.

The Thulir alumni, Perumal, Kumar, Munusamy and their group have been busy doing all the electrical work in the valley, repairing TVs, cell phones etc., so very essential in the lockdown times.

Food and vegetables

The initiation of  Sittilingi Organic Farmers Association assures the community of a variety of millets, some dals and spices in the valley. Manju and the SOFA team have a nursery where they grow different varieties of keerai(spinach).

From the time the Thulir school started,  around 75 people eat lunch every day at Thulir. And we go once a week and buy vegetables from outside.  Over the years we have been talking to many neighbouring farmers and parents to grow vegetables for the Thulir meals. Many were reluctant as vegetables are perishable and more difficult to market than millets. But a few started and their numbers slowly grew.

We are proud of the fact that for the first time last year we bought more vegetables locally than from outside. And this has helped all of us in the village during this lockdown when the supply and distribution chains are cut and threats to our food security loom on the horizon. Locally grown food seems to be the sustainable solution.

It is heartening to see more and more farmers growing food crops and vegetables instead of cash crops.  True, the variety is limited.  In this season in Sittilingi, we get only brinjals, lady’s fingers, greens, cluster beans and tomatoes. But all of us have become endlessly creative in coming up with new recipes to cook these vegetables!

Educational measures

All over the world teachers and children are engaging virtually with each other and a vast variety of excellent educational materials and classes are available on the net. But all this is out of reach for our children and teachers because none of our villages have good internet connectivity.

Only the hospital campus has broadband connection in the valley but even that is often down. We always had to go out to bigger towns to access the net. But even that is not possible now.  It is a familiar sight to see young men go around the valley with their phones and laptops searching for good signal spots under a tamarind tree or a particular rock where a 2 G signal at very low speed may be accessed. Women and children don’t have even this access . Most of our lady teachers don’t even own a cell phone.

While we believe that children learn  more in the fields and homes while watching adults work than in the classrooms, the sad fact about today’s villages is that children are mostly exposed to adults watching TV serials or drinking alcohol and fights between family members most of the day.

Our teachers have brainstormed about activities which would force parents and children outside and encourage children to learn from their parents and grandparents observing plants, trees and insects around their farm and asking parents about them, drawing and writing about them, finding out from their grandparents how each millet is grown, writing about forest trees, finding out and recording weekly household expenditure etc.  They have been preparing worksheets and learning materials in the old fashioned way and physically making sure they reach the children in the villages while maintaining physical distancing.

But working online, if not done properly can be torture for rural students too. Vennila, (name changed) a Thulir alumnus now studying in a  private nursing college outside, has to mark her attendance on Google Classroom everyday. Though there are brilliant audio visual 3d materials available on the internet her professors have not been trained to access them or use them. They just upload difficult essays from the textbooks. None of Vennila’ s professors or the college management are even aware that there are villages in India where people have no access to smart phones or internet.  Ram has been trying to help her and her classmates and says he has to struggle with the poor connectivity, the bad quality materials uploaded  and the fact that both the professors and the student are only interested in fulfilling the mechanics and requirements of the operations but not in actual understanding or learning.

This is reality in rural India. There are many, many students like Vennila here!

Visitors & Volunteers

Students and teachers from Isai Ambalam School visited us in January. They talked about the importance of herbal medicine and demonstrated the process of making some simple herbal tooth powders and preventive medicines. The Thulir team taught the visitors some local crafts and songs.

Sam & Shiksha, primary school teachers from the U.S.A, visited us in February. They helped us with the classes for teachers and students.

Younger students and teachers of Marudam School visited us for one day in March. Both groups shared songs, dances, plays and tasty food with each other!

Dr. Arundhati finished her stint at THI and left to pursue higher studies. During her years here, she made a habit of putting all her loose change in a piggy bank and donated it to Thulir when she left.

All of us and especially the children were very touched by her gesture.

Folk Dance workshop

These are pictures of the five day traditional Tamil folk dance workshop conducted by Sri. Manimaran prior to the lock down.

Another dance workshop by Jyotsana and her team from Samkaram, Chennai, the end term parents’ meeting and the Annual day celebrations were cancelled due to the lockdown.

Funding

Even at the best of times, our tribal parents are not able to financially support a school like this. Now many of them have no jobs or an income. Thulir school needs contributions and support from its well wishers even to pay the teachers’ salaries for some years to come. Given the predictions of an economic recession,we were worried that Thulir may not receive the funding it needs. This is a real concern.

Friends at Asha Bangalore and Ein Zehntel Stiftung responded with sensitivity and understanding and acted very promptly to alleviate our fears. We thank them for their committed and constant support!

We still need more funds to restart farming and construction activities. We urgently need to build a dining hall, a store room , rooms for people to stay so that the land can be looked after. This is also essential at this time as construction work can provide livelihoods and income for people affected by the lockdown.

Please click >> here to download our brochure that can be shared online.

The virus has brought us all to a stop, to refocus, realign, rethink a lot of things. To re evaluate what is really important.

Let us hope the compassion, wisdom and unity millions of us around the world have felt will ultimately prevail and we will all come out of this together to create a new world, a better world for our children!

Stay safe and well.

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Wishing you all a peaceful and meaningful 2020!

New buds of Thulir

This academic year, we had many inquiries from the parents about the admission process.  We admit children only if they are above 4 yrs. Some of the parents, who couldn’t get the admission last year due to the age of their child, didn’t send them to any other school but waited for Thulir’s admission. We are grateful to these parents for their trust. This year fifteen children from the Sittilingi valley joined the thulir family. We started this academic year with 53 children.

Lessons learnt from the local community

We had a very severe water shortage this summer. The school well was completely dry! Various water saving measures were adopted. We learnt from the tribal team how to manage with whatever little was available. Cooking for 70 people, cleaning, washing was accomplished with less than 500 litres a day. No one complained! Work went on. That was a great lesson for all of us. A neighbour voluntarily and generously gave us water from his well when the condition became worse.

Parents Meetings

In July, during our first parents’ meeting this academic year, old parents welcomed the new parents in to the Thulir family and some of them spoke about their personal experiences with the school. They reassured the new parents that they needn’t compare this school with other schools as Thulir helps their child to learn in an atmosphere of freedom and joy. Couple of parents also admitted that their initial fears that the child isn’t writing A,B,C.., isn’t writing homework, were unfounded  and they bore witness to their own children growing with solid foundation and a spirit of inquiry. We are grateful for the Parents’ trust in our school and team.

Holidays and transport issues were discussed in the meeting in September. We are very happy that for the last two years parents have collectively taken charge of transporting the children to school. But as with any collective action there are numerous adjustment issues.  Sometimes the parents request some of us to intervene. Many meetings were held for this both at school and in the village.

Toy Maker@ Thulir

Our dear friend Sri. Arvind Gupta visited us in August. We are all great admirers of his work and his workshop for government school teachers at Gandhigram, 27 years ago, had inspired Anu and Krishna to step into the world of learning and education! Recently he was awarded Padmashri by our government. It was a privilege to have Sri. Arvind Gupta in Thulir along with his family.

We had organised a small event in our school and also invited Sittilingi govt school teachers/students to participate. We had arranged Arvind’s table in the centre and the childrens’  tables were in the periphery but once the session started children thronged to Arvind and their excitement knew no bounds. Plastic straws, old slippers, water bottles, CD ROMS, newspapers, matchsticks, marbles, magnets, wires etc. were his tools of trade. Right in front of our eyes he transformed an ordinary piece of rubbish to a wonderful toy.

The variety of caps using old newspapers was an immediate hit – Nurse, Policeman, cricket player, fire fighter and many more. All our children were seen sporting one or another variant of the newspaper caps. Children and teachers alike were quite thrilled in witnessing these creations and motivated in making our own.

Children tried creating some of the paper crafts, and tops with Sri. Arvind Gupta’s help. The next day he interacted with the junior doctors of the Tribal hospital and shared his life’s journey. We are grateful to Sri. Arvind Gupta for giving us a memorable experience.

Visit to Moola-Sittilingi

In June, our older group of children along with our teachers took part in conducting a survey in Moola sittilingi village (undertaken by Tribal Health Initiative) for two days. The purpose was to collect the demographic data about the village.

Our children walked alongside the THI staff and visited the houses in the fields one by one and observed the process of taking a survey. Slowly, our children also started asking questions about the food habits of the villagers, comparing what they ate in the past and now, the type of the roof/floor/walls in the village, crops and animals in the farm.

Everyday we started in the morning and by noon we were all very tired. In the classroom, we processed the collected data by tabulating and tried identifying trends by plotting graphs etc. It was a wonderful experience for all of us.

Sports day at Thulir

We celebrated Sports day at Thulir at the end of August. Thulir children and other children of the valley participated in the event. We had planned a 50m Sprint, high jump, long jump (childrens’ favourite murukku jump) for all the age groups. Before the event, our teachers and children worked on the playground clearing it for the tracks and for other events.

Children participated with great enthusiasm and some children were curious to know what prizes would be distributed.  At Thulir, we don’t give prizes only for the winners as, we think, it fails to acknowledge the efforts of other children and seems to make children only compete for the prizes and compare. While it is important to appreciate and acknowledge the efforts of the winners, it shouldn’t also dampen the spirits of these very young children.

We normally give a prize to everyone who participates. But even in this, the focus shifts to the prize and not the sport. So this time we decided there wouldn’t be any prizes for anybody. We would all partake in a common celebratory lunch. Children wholeheartedly agreed to this arrangement.  We all had great fun.

Bags from rags

Thejal from Mumbai visited Thulir after the Marudam craft week. Thejal is interested in recycling and innovative use of, what we generally consider as refuse, coconut shells, rags, leaves, paper etc. She works with these materials and creates beautiful toys, bags, plates, cups, ear rings, necklaces and many more. After meeting her at the craft week, our children and teachers were very excited about her visit and quite keen to learn from her.

Paper peacocks and charka

Mr. Madhav & Ms. Neelima from Pune visited us in November. For over a decade Mr. Madhav spins his charka everyday for 30 mins as a sadhana and uses the yarn to stitch his own clothes. He taught us to spin using the charka. Some of us struggled to keep the yarn going and he encouraged us to try and practice.

Ms. Neelima showed us the many possibilities and potentials in a piece of paper which we usually discard as rubbish. An old magazine paper was first made into a square and some folds here and some folds there, few cuts here and few cuts there, lo and behold, a peacock! Childrens’ excitement was visible. Neelima taught us how to make boxes, greeting cards, envelopes, stars, balls, peacocks, crows using paper.

The process of handwork, irrespective of being simple or complex, helps learning in many ways and conducive to the physical and cognitive development of all, regardless of age. Knowing the material, the rich sensorial experience of handling it  in your hands, planning and sequencing the actions, the intent and motivation towards reaching an end, patience, perseverance in the face of failure and after all the hardship the joy of having created something. This entire process is self-directed/self-motivated and discipline issues never arise.

Children do not need expensive toys, which nowadays are made mostly of plastic. If we try, we can find many uses for the materials around us and this instills the value and respect for the material as opposed to the mere consumption of it.

Home and School – establishing bonds!

Teachers visited the different villages where the children come from, keeping in mind that our school is not an island but an important  part of the community here. Visiting each child’s home and interacting with the parents helps us understand the child and her needs better.

Joy of giving/receiving

“This is the tastiest rice I have ever eaten in my life!” exclaimed child after child. During the 2018 cyclone in Kerala which affected the adivasi communities in Wyanad and the appeal for help from friends at the Gurukula botanical sanctuary, our children and teachers had responded with a gesture straight from their hearts.( Ref: >> newsletter June – Dec 2018) Though their contribution was small, their sister adivasi community at Wynad was touched by the gesture. They used this money to plant traditional varieties of paddy. And when the harvest came this year, they sent a portion of it for the children in our school. Of course their love, gratitude and solidarity made the rice tastier!

Tree planting

“Do you like the old school or the new school?” Most visitors ask our students. “The old school” comes the immediate reply! After spending enormous effort, attention and resources on the new school, we are a little disappointed with this response. But after a little probing we found out that the  children did love the buildings. The lack of trees in the new campus was their problem.

Govinda and Leela from Marudam farm school came again with their previous gift of around 100 native tree saplings. This is the third year we are planting trees and despite the drought and severe water shortage most of the 150 trees from the previous years have survived.

Children’ s vegetable beds

It seems to be true that plants respond more readily to children. These vegetable beds are only 3 months old but they are already contributing considerably to our school lunches!

Ex- students take classes

It was a matter of great pride that ex students of Thulir volunteered in Thulir and took classes. They also recalled what they learnt here earlier and taught that too.

Bharathi Krishnan, who is studying his medical lab technology course in CMC Vellore, taught the students craft, songs and Kolattam (Tamil folk dance).

Anuradha, who is doing her at ANM course at Gudalur Adivasi hospital, taught children about nutrition.

Visit from Ananya School

In November, Santhosh, an old and good  friend of Thulir, brought a group of children from Ananya school, Bangalore to Sittilingi. Ananya trust runs a school for underprivileged children from the urban areas. Our kids and teachers got along quite well with the group. Santhosh engaged the children with stories and sports activities. Thulir and Ananya kids went on a trek in the forest.

Marudam team visit

Govinda along with a group of participants from the ecological nurturance programme visited us in October. The participants of the programme were an interesting group from all walks of life.

They chose to stay in our school campus ( they were our first visitors to do so). We were initially worried about the lack of lodging facilities at the school campus but they gracefully adjusted with the basic facilities at the school.

The group, along with Govinda, worked on the school campus by building bunds, percolation ponds etc., Everyday they started early in the morning and worked at a stretch for 4, 5 hours! Their zeal and enthusiasm caught on with all of us – teachers and students, and we worked along with them.

Govt. Recognition

Our application to obtain the government recognition to our school is in progress. We have got clearances from all the departments and our application is currently pending at the state educational office.

Teacher training workshops at Fig Tree Learning Centre, Bangalore.

During Dec first week, the entire Thulir team travelled to Bangalore on a three day trip to visit Sita school. Some of our teachers brought their kids along. We took a train from Dharmapuri. It was the first train journey for some of us in our team. We packed our food & snacks and we all had a nice time travelling as a big group.

At Fig Tree, Jane and her team welcomed us and helped us to understand how learning, especially language learning, can be made organic and sensible to the child through ingenious use of books and materials, books and libraries, balance of languages, the role of personal motivation. We had a lively and interactive session with Mr. Roshan sahi about the role of Art in Education.

We also witnessed the wonderful creations of Sita school children over the years. It was a remarkable experience to witness 30, 40 year old artworks by children being preserved in excellent condition. Our entire team benefitted by this visit and our heartfelt thanks to Jane and the entire Sita school team for their warmth and hospitality.

On the last day, we visited Cubbon park, Visvesvaraya Science Museum and took a short trip in Bengaluru metro. We are grateful to Runners’ high team for helping us with the travel arrangements in Bangalore.

Clowns without borders

At the end of December, a group of four artists from ‘Clowns without borders’, Germany visited us. They are a group of clowns, acrobatic and performing artists who travel around the world on a voluntary basis to perform for the people, who otherwise wouldn’t have access to such events.

The event was a first of its kind in Sittilingi and we invited all the parents, hospital staff and other children of the valley. It was a spectacular show and an impressive performance by the artists. Children and adults thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Participation at Auroville Marathon

Sakthivel has been interacting and training with students from the Sittilingi government school. In February he took some of them to participate in the Marathon in Auroville!

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This newsletter was written and compiled by Ram. 

Photo Credits: Ms. Niharika and Staff of Thulir.

“There are moments that will make your life worth living for… watching  the joy on the faces of the 50 odd kids and their teachers move into a new campus is certainly one such moment. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us.” writes Balaji, an Asha volunteer and a longtime friend and supporter of Thulir, in his Facebook Post. You can read his full post here >> Balaji’s FB Post

Sangeetha, a doctor who had worked in THI Hospital in Sittilingi, writes further about the event : “ A tree was drawn on the board. The eldest health worker drew the first leaf. She was followed by everyone who contributed to Thulir — the first students, teachers, parents, architecture interns, volunteers, THI team, village health auxiliaries, health workers, the founders, masons, electricians , funders, the akkas who cook food for the children, friends of the founders and the trustees. This was the inauguration of the new Thulir school! It was more than a ceremony. It was a celebration of team effort.” You can read her full post here >> Sangeetha’s FB Post.

Yes, six classrooms and office are finally ready and we shifted to the new school campus on January 23rd! There are not enough words to adequately express our thanks to each and everyone of you who helped us get here.

 Initial days at the new school

“See what I have brought!”  “What’s in your lunch box?” “ I am hungry!” Why is it still not lunchtime?” These were the frequently heard refrains during our initial days. The kitchen at the new school is not yet built. Parents offered to send lunches for their children the first month. This was a novelty at Thulir and therefore a cause for excitement for the children.

But soon parents began to tire, competition and comparison of food began to set in and everyone started to look forward to the school lunches again. Kannagi, Jothi and Kamala, the cooks, without a single murmur or complaint started cooking lunch for 60 people outdoors on two makeshift stoves of stones! The tribal quality of making do with the least of resources never ceases to amaze us.

 Towards social change

The Thulir team along with the THI and SOFA team participated in the Gram Sabha of the Sittilingi Panchayat on January 26th. Gram Sabhas were envisioned as a means of ensuring the participation of the people in the workings of the local Panchayat government. They are supposed to be held four times every year so that the common people of the area can express their needs and problems as well as oversee the functioning of the elected Panchayat.  Though the Gram Sabha system in theory puts a lot of power in the hands of people to bring about change in their localities, there is no awareness about these meetings and very few, if any, people attend them. This year, for the first time, awareness was raised in our valley about the Gram Sabhas and people turned up in large numbers for the first Gram Sabha of the year.

Pongal Celebrations in Thulir

This year too Pongal was celebrated with the usual cooking of new rice, traditional dance, and decoration of walls with murals by children and staff. This has become an annual event in Thulir, keenly looked forward to by the Thulir community.

Network Meeting

 The 26th annual educational network meeting (of individuals deeply engaging with questions in education)  was held in Thulir in February.  Around 35 individuals from various schools and initiatives attended. The theme for this year’s discussions was ‘ The creative process’.

Krishna writes about this:

“The intellectual engagement with abstract ideas, the listening and sharing of personal experiences and anecdotal stories, the one to one or small group interactions that lead to friendships and their renewal, sitting in a group and listening to pauses and silences, the beautiful singing and music and to participate in group singing, the variety in venues and the unique setting each place offers, good food, walks together, not to forget the moments of personal frustrations when communication becomes difficult on rare occasions and being able then to reflect upon it, all are very important in a unique bundle that becomes the meeting experience.”

Yashodara writes:

“Thulir was a beautiful setting for this gathering…a diverse group of creative, sensitive, affectionate people. It was a treat for all my senses: Low, airy mud-thatch structures, bamboo lattices, moving sunlight & shadows in different shapes, Anu’s rangoli on the mud plaster floor, unexpected paintings in earthy colours, the brilliant tree with yellow flowers, jeweled beetles scuttling around, the busy huddle around Diba cutting paper, stitching books, the glorious sky at dusk visiting Shaktivel’s Mula-Sittilingi home, the playful touches in buildings in Thulir new campus, corner blackboards hiding shelves, counting frames in the grill doors, fractions in the window grills, the painted floor-river across rooms full of fish & turtles…

… The smell of the cow dung on the mud floor, turmeric aroma in the pit loos, morning wood fire faithfully making potfuls of bath water, snack delights of all kinds: millet cookies, giant groundnut laddus, crisp khakras, smells of Tamil-style rasam, papads, hot dosai with peanut chutney…”

Dance workshop

Drum beats and songs fill the air and children are dancing and singing in every corner! There is special pride in dancing dances that were taught to senior classes. The dance workshop conducted by Sri. Mohan was on again. The highlight this year was the paraiyattam. Eight and nine year olds slung the heavy parais – traditional hide drums – on their shoulders and danced to the rhythm they themselves created! Children seem to take to rhythm naturally and quickly – their whole bodies respond to it. This is brain-hand-body coordination at its peak.

Some parents objected to their daughters playing the parai as it is associated with a particular caste and gender. But most other parents didn’t and the dance was a resounding success!

Articles about Thulir

Priti David  from PARI visited Thulir earlier to write about Thulir. Her article can be read here>> taking-their-skills-back-to-school-in-sittilingi

An artist and educator, Niharika visited us in January and helped with the shifting and the work for the inauguration. She has written about her time, in her blog, which you can read here >> thulir-in-sittilingi

Bengaluru Summer Camp

Sakthivel took Sribal, Kadiravan, Raina, Chandru and Kumaresan to participate in the week long Warm and Free summer camp for children of diverse backgrounds at Spastic Society of Karnataka. They had a memorable experience.

Election Fever

Homemade ballot paper. Note the party symbols.NOTA option also exists, and received one vote.

“If you vote for me, I will give you 10 acres of land and a cow!” Our party policy is “Improve farming and the farmers” “ If you vote for me, I will ensure more craft time and more free time!” “Vote for the butterfly party! We believe that all gods are one and one need not fight over that!” “ If you vote for me I will ensure there is less millet rice and more white rice for lunch” “Our party policy is to preserve the natural and reduce the artificial”

These slogans are not from our national parties or politicians. These were from our students during mock elections in Thulir. One hopes that our politicians could learn from our children!

Elections are a huge event in rural Tamil Nadu. Everyone everywhere is talking of it. But we realised most people had no clear understanding of the process involved especially in the elections for the Lok Sabha! They have many questions..“How does my voting here for the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu make Modi Prime Minister in Delhi?” etc. So we decided to hold elections in Thulir as a learning exercise.

The older children formed three parties, complete with party manifestos, symbols, flags etc. The whole school was divided into five constituencies spread over five districts in various states. Each party put forth one candidate in each constituency, and there was also a single independent candidate. Ballot papers, nomination forms and voter ID cards were all handmade.

Voting was held in five polling booths in five different classrooms simultaneously. The votes were then counted amidst great excitement and the MP for each constituency was announced. The party with the majority in our five member parliament was then asked to choose the Prime Minister and form the government.

Candidate posing with her campaign poster. Representation of women candidates was certainly far higher than either the national or state average!

Comings and goings

•  Meenakshi Chandra, who initially came to volunteer for three months, stayed on for a year and helped us with illustrations, books and teaching materials. Meenakshi left this year to pursue her other interests. We wish her the best in her efforts.
•  Mr. Dipon Deb from Calcutta, visited us in February.
•  Ute and Karl, old and dear friends, visited us in April.
•  Swetha volunteered in Thulir this past year and illustrated many of the books we have made. She captivated the students and teachers with her Art and English classes. Though her year with us is over, we hope we will see more of her as she has promised to be back often.
• Five students – Varshini, Dharshini, Sribalu, Kathiravan and Dharini – who completed class five this year left to pursue their sixth grade in other schools.

Parents’ Meeting

 “Let’s reduce the burdens of the school, take over some of their work and give them more time  to teach our children.” said one of the fathers. “Let one or two of us from each village collect the parental contributions from our village and pass it on to the school.” said another father. “Similarly let’s sit together and smoothen out all the glitches there are in the transport of our children to school” said a mother.

This was at the parents’ meeting in April. It was gratifying to see the parents gradually take more ownership and responsibility over the school. Parents who used to be shy and silent in the initial meetings were now participating earnestly.

 While discussing the recent dance workshop we brought up the questions we had around dancing and singing for discussion. In all indigenous communities dancing was always a communal group activity in which everyone participated. But now it has become a performer/ spectator activity in which the so called experts perform and the others passively watch. usually on a TV screen! Dancing for the sake of dancing has disappeared. Our children too think they are learning dance only towards a function, to perform on the stage. And when it is a stage performance, comparisons and competition set in. So we wondered if we could change this; whether parents and children could dance together!

 Some parents protested: “The children had someone teaching them but we didn’t!” Another said, “ We really like the idea of all of us doing something together but most of us are shy to dance. But we can all work together. Maybe we should all get together and do some work for the school” This was agreed upon with great enthusiasm! Since the days were sweltering hot we decided to work indoors. April 14th was fixed as the D day.

April 14th – Cultural Festival – 15 years of Thulir!

This was truly a special day! It was Tamil New Year’s Day as well as the 15th birthday of Thulir. Parents started trickling in from noon. We had organised different craft work in different classes and parents were free to join whatever activity they chose. Dancing happened in the big multipurpose classroom. There was a festive spirit in the  whole school, people conversing, working, laughing, children running around, dancing. The parents too ended up joining in the dancing and once they started they wouldn’t stop! The children performed the dances they had learned. We served snacks and buttermilk and danced together late into the evening.

We thank each and every one of you for being with us through all our efforts these fifteen years.

The Thulir Team.

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New School Inauguration

As we write this, we are all quite excited as 6 classrooms, office and toilets of the new school are ready! We plan to have a very simple inauguration ceremony on the 23rd of January. We would be honoured if you could join us on that day.

News of the academic year so far…

It was truly heartening to see the children come back to school eagerly after the summer vacation with huge smiles on their faces. They asked after their plants as if they were long lost friends! They wanted to look at their favourite books and puzzles. They came to each of us with stories and incidents from home.

It is always like walking on a tight rope trying to fulfill the requests for admission while still keeping the school small enough to be able to maintain its quality. Though there were numerous requests for admissions, we decided to take only fifteen 4 year olds this year. One of our students left us due to parental constraints and so we now have 53 children from 7 villages.

Parents’ Initiative

Our first parents meeting this academic year started with an informal interaction between the new and old parents about the school. Parents spoke about the school and its philosophy. Most new parents too showed some awareness of the philosophy of Thulir.

Bringing children to school has always been a problem for parents from the distant villages since we don’t have a school van. But we were very happy to see that parents from Dhadhampatti came together and took the initiative to solve this problem. One of them has bought a second hand van and this makes two trips each day and brings most children to school. The logistics of this is being handled entirely by the parents.

Formation of parents teacher association

Over the years, we’ve been discussing the need to have a team of people comprising of both teachers and parents to handle and resolve issues that affect both the school and the family. They would act as a bridge between the parents and the school, especially taking decisions related to the scale of parents’ contributions towards the food expenses of the children and collecting it.

In Thulir, parents don’t pay fees towards their children’s educational expenses but they contribute in cash, kind or labour towards the food that the school provides for them. We were very happy that the parents took the initiative to create this association and form an executive committee. It was decided that the executive committee would have two parents from each village and two teachers. In fact, the executive committee members have already started taking initiative in helping with some of the school work.

Foldscope

Do you remember ever handling a microscope in your high school days? Of how careful one would have to be around it, how rarely one got an opportunity to do so and how you hardly ever understood what you saw through it?! Imagine if microscopes were not so expensive and every child had one in their pockets and could explore the inner world of whatever took their fancies!

The Foldscope is an ingenious microscope designed just for that. It is just a lens mounted on a sheet of paper folded in a particular way. The Department of Biotechnology is trying this out on an experimental basis in a few schools in India. As part of this, our friend Dr.Varuni from IIMSc, Chennai, arrived in Thulir at the end of July with a dozen Foldscopes and a plan to study the pollen from different flowers.

What we do is fairly simple – pick a flower with pollen, tap it on the slide (which is just a paper slide with cello-tape) and look at it through the lens. But what we get to see is a visual treat of yellows, pinks, oranges, translucent or opaque, plain or patterned units of pollen grains different for each flower. Although the pollen is what we intended to see we had surprise visits by creatures otherwise invisible to the naked eye. Worm-like, insect-like creatures were quite a fascination for the children and adults.

Joy Of Giving

All of us were deeply saddened by the floods and loss in Kerala. We talked about this in school and subsequently when our friends from the Gurukula Botanical sanctuary in Wyanad sent out a call for help, the entire team wanted to contribute.

Ours is not a rich community so we were overwhelmed by the way children and teachers gave wholeheartedly. It was really touching to see 4 and 5 year olds come running with Rs.5 and 10 in hand. One child came with her piggy bank and shook out all the coins! We finally sent around Rs.18,000.

Participation in Marathons

Sakthivel and 7 Thulir alumni students participated in the Bangalore marathon in July. 12 runners from Thulir participated in the Hyderabad marathon in August.

Interaction with parents

Swetha Nambiar, an artist and long time friend of Thulir, is currently volunteering at Thulir. Swetha handles English classes for the younger group and conducts art sessions for all groups.

Here Swetha writes her impressions of the Thulir Parent teacher meeting held on 21st September 2018

“On a fine afternoon, the quadrangle at Thulir was buzzing with people smiling and welcoming each other, the teachers and parents catching up on the lives of the children and each other. The soft buzz settled into a quieter quiet, welcoming the gathering into that moment.

A quick update of the parent committee, school timings, and such. Parents were asked to share what they felt and that really opened up the expanse of the influence the school has on the lives of children.

“He used to be very quiet before, now he is talking to us and tells us what is going on in school” this was something that most parents of the youngest children shared. “She used to be scared of everything but now she’s open and demands we too sing the songs she learns in school”. “She doesn’t like the food we make at home, comparing it to the food at Thulir”.

Another parent shared that she felt very proud when her daughter helped a child who fell down and was crying, and on being asked, her daughter recited a line from one of the songs that we sing in the assembly about how the “magic of the hands are in helping those in need”. “Other schools do not give Dhairyam (courage) and Thannambikkai (self-confidence). Ellaraalayum ellavishayamum mudiyum (everything is possible by everyone) and that is what is different about this school” said another parent.

The problem of child sexual abuse was brought into the meeting, a concern that had cropped up after Anu had a class with the older children on body and safety. The children had confided to her about instances of abuse they had faced from relatives and older teens in the neighbourhood. Parents and teachers were equally shocked to know that child sexual abuse is no more the stuff of news carried to us from the cities but very much a reality here in the village.

What was interesting for me was if someone had walked into the middle of the meeting they wouldn’t have been able to say who the parents were and who the teachers were, it felt like one whole community of adults sitting there, talking educational matters. That felt so right”.

The role of stories

In October, Mr. David Vale conducted a workshop for the teachers on using local stories as a resource for language and literacy across all subjects of the curriculum.

Swetha writes again …

“In the month of October, all the teachers would look forward to”David Anna’s Class” in the evening. He is an excellent narrator primarily interested in English Language education. But the principles we learned from him can be applied to any language education. An important learning was the role stories played in learning a language.

Stories chosen for language classes were done so by keeping certain factors in mind – language appropriate for their age but without compromising on the richness of the language, possibilities of exploring math, science, social science, art etc. from different aspects of the story. This is important simply because the story gives them the foundation to do that and all the language used around it becomes meaningful in that context! This is extremely important in a language – especially if its not the home language.

These classes were very engaging because he did with us teachers what he expected us to do with the children. It was hands-on, and full of activities just like he wanted the language classes to be. From how to tell stories to opening up the expanse of where all it can take us unfolded in his classes day by day.

The high point was when the teachers made two books based on the life and folklore of Sittilingi titled – The “Magic Purple Chili of Sittilingi” and “The Bamboo Story”. Books that we can hold close to our chests and call “ours”. Books that children from here would relate to like it was happening in their neighbourhood. A small feat that, has actually fueled us to make more such books .

Marudam Craft Week

Participating in the Craft week at Marudam farm school, Thiruvannamalai has become a much anticipated annual event. This year 17 children and three adults stayed in Marudam for the entire week. Our children are now older and it was truly a pleasure to watch them interact fearlessly with the older children from other schools.

They learnt a wide variety of crafts and exhibited them proudly on their return.

Sad Event

Sittilingi was in the news for the wrong reasons. A cheerful, intelligent 17 year old ex Thulir student was gang raped by two youth in the village in November and subsequently died a few days later! Youth and women from almost all villages in the valley got together for two days in a peaceful show of solidarity with the family.

We used to be proud of the fact that Sittilingi was a safe place for all. But the fact that Sittilingi is changing drastically, is becoming ‘developed’ and ‘non-tribalised’ and women are no longer safe here was brought home rudely to us.

Alcohol, migration to cities for jobs, TV and internet access, exposure to porn on the cell phones etc. are huge influences on our youth. Our boys need sensitive upbringing and good role models urgently. Our only hope lies in the fact that the tribal value of community spirit and action has not disappeared totally as yet.

Article about Thulir

Ms. Salai selvam, an educator, activist and a columnist in Tamil Hindu wrote a series of articles on alternative schools and learning spaces in Tamilnadu. Thulir was also featured in this series – link

Visitors and volunteers

• Sujatha Padmanabhan from Kalpavriksh, Pune visited us in June. The children were quite excited when they learned that she was an author of children’s books and asked her many questions about writing a book, illustrating and printing it. Later they enjoyed an unique experience of hearing a story read out by the author herself when Sujatha read out her story, ‘Bumboo’.

• Visitors from various countries talked to the children about their countries. Geography is more personal and fun this way. Ben, a medical student from Austria and Natasha, a medical intern from Zambia talked about their respective countries.

• Suja Swaminathan visited us at end of July to do a small study on “schools as  spaces for incubation practice and transformation of culture” as part of her course work at TISS.

• About 20 children and 2 teachers from Helikx open school, Salem visited us in July. Helikx school caters to children with dyslexia and other learning disabilities.

• Balaji from Asha for Education visited us in August. Balaji is a long time friend and supporter of Thulir. His support means a lot to us.

• Ramya Arivazhagan, a story teller from Chennai visited us in August. Ramya’ s telling of the Japanese folk tale ‘Momotaro’ (the peach boy) was particularly enjoyed by the children.

• Sunayana, a theatre artist from Bangalore, visited us in September.

• Three young architects, Muthu, Dinesh and Meenakshi interned at the school building site. Muthu left after two years and Dinesh after a year as the buildings got completed. Other architects and architecture students have been coming in for shorter durations to learn practically on site. Meenakshi is volunteering now in the school and helping us prepare books for children.

• Srinath, a civil engineer from Kottapatti is currently volunteering at the school site. Most of the volunteers used to come from cities, we are happy that some one local chose to volunteer here.

• Sreyarth helped our teachers with computer literacy in August. We can observe a marked improvement in our teachers’ confidence and their ability in operating a computer. Sreyarth also did some basic theatre exercises with the children.

• Siddharth, an actor and theatre artist from Kerala did a short theatre workshop with the children.

•  Sri Madhav and Neelima Sahasrabudhe form Pune came for a weekend and taught us spinning and origami.

• Joji, Shani and Shashwath from New Zealand visited us in December. They boosted the  morale of our team by holding a special session and explaining how impressed they were with the children, the atmosphere and culture of Thulir.

 A ‘Thank you’ lunch for the construction artisans

The first phase of the new school construction is over! As a token of our appreciation and gratitude we hosted a lunch for all the construction artisans on December 8th.

New school Construction

“This does not look like a school at all!” is the comment we often hear from visitors to our school building site when they see the various cottage like classrooms scattered about. The normal big multi-storeyed rectangular school buildings appear huge to a child and therefore inspire fear and anxiety. We wanted our school to come down to the child’s scale and soothe, excite and welcome her.

We have also tried to incorporate as many learning elements in the buildings themselves. For example, place value bars and beads and fractions are incorporated in the door grills. Geometrical shapes are shown by the different windows and floor patterns. A clock is part of a window grill. We hope that these buildings would stimulate a child’s curiosity and creativity.

We are yet to construct a library and a kitchen and we are still raising funds for this phase. Here is the link to our online brochure, we request you to spread the word and help us raise funds for the new buildings.

We thank all of you for your contributions and support towards the new school! We could not have done all this without your support.

We wish you a very happy and a meaningful 2019 !

Greetings from Thulir!

Sittilingi Run

The Sittilingi Run – initiated last year —  was held again on the 7th of January this year. The run was a huge hit locally. Around hundred men, women and children turned up early in the morning and enthusiastically ran the 10 km and 4 km runs! A group of runners from Runner’s High, Bangalore, two Stanley Medical College Alumni and three runners from Thekampattu also participated. The runners were rewarded with a very tasty millet breakfast prepared by our women farmers’ group and  T-shirts organised by Muthu.

Pongal Celebrations

The Pongal celebrations were a little subdued this year but the children surpassed themselves in their wall paintings and Kolams. Except for the blues and pinks, all the other colours used for the wall painting were derived from natural materials.

New Arrival in the Thulir Family

We welcome Ram and Archana’ s new baby girl, Chaitanya! She was born in the Tribal Hospital during the Pongal holidays.

Parents meeting

This year’s parents meeting in January started with a performance by our children with their eager parents in the audience. Some children read a story or an excerpt from their books, while the older groups performed a dance sequence and the 4 year olds did a small play. We ensured that all our children participated in these activities.

Their lack of stage fear and openness in expressing themselves were appreciated by all the parents in the meeting that followed. The parents also gave their feedback  about the school and its teaching, learning approaches. Some parents expressed the concern that as we do not have a school van, children from hamlets that are further away were finding it hard to commute to the school. They decided to explore the possibility of parents getting together and arranging a vehicle to  transport the kids  from  these hamlets  to the school.

The teachers brought up the topic of media and its impact on  children. Many parents expressed their helplessness in curtailing children’s screen time. Encouraging children to read a variety of books and the importance of books in helping children grow and in promoting literacy among them was also discussed.

Maya, a volunteer from Switzerland, talked about the garbage problem that is plaguing the world and how the beauty of this landscape and our environment is ruined by garbage.

Farmer’s meet

Our children did a short song and dance performance for the Annual Meeting of the Sittilingi  Organic Farmers Association!

An introduction into the enchanting world of Bharatha Natyam

A unique experience was in store for all of us in March, thanks to Ms.Jyotsna and her team of dancers from the Shamkaram troupe, trained in the Kalakshetra school of classical dance. They came all the way from Chennai, engaged with the children during the day, did a stunning performance in the evening and left by night. Their unflagging interest in dance was highly contagious.

The creatures of the wild came alive in our classrooms. Herd of elephants went on a rampage, peacocks danced in the rain, fishes and crocodiles leaped out of the sea. Do we need explicit instruction to appreciate art ? Children immediately merged into the performance without any barriers and were captivated by the elegance, poise and grace of the movements.

In the evening, the staff of Thulir, Hospital, SOFA and Porgai, alongside half the village community gathered in the meeting hall in the Sittilingi Organic Farmers Association campus. Jyotsna talked about dance and the performing arts in general. She opined that dance is not exclusive and talked about how we do not need any special qualification to appreciate this art form, the diversity of indigenous dance forms that exist in our land, how all our communities valued performing arts, how not to lose sight of this diversity, the dangers of dogmatism etc. With a few dance movements she demonstrated how dance was a language and can be used to express oneself. This talk helped us to gain a perspective to observe and understand the performance by the team that followed. This was the first time most of us witnessed a live Bharatanatyam recital.

It was heartening to witness the effect of performing arts on human souls. Our thanks to the entire Shamkaram team for their efforts in bringing joy and dance to Sittilingi.

Classical Dance Training

The Shamkaram team has offered to teach dance to our students and teachers. As a first step, Rajamma and Sasikala visited Shamkaram campus, Chennai, during the first week of May and learned some basic classical dance steps. They stayed at Yoga Vahini. This was their first visit to Chennai on their own. Thanks to the Yoga Vahini and Shamkaram teams for giving them a memorable time.

Sports day at Thulir

Our annual sports day events were held in March, with enthusiastic participation from children and adults.

Folk Dance Workshop

Sri Mohan from Porur conducted a workshop on rural folk song and dance from April 4th to 7th. The teachers and children enthusiastically learned Paraiyattam, Oyilattam, Karagam, Kummi, Kolattam, Kazhiyiyalattam and Villupaatu. It was a short but intense session and the whole campus resounded with music and dance from morning to night each day.

Practice session for Karagattam

Villupaatu is a traditional form of musical narration in a group format addressing various social issues, usually with plenty of humour involved. The narration is started by the main figure of a Guru, and the disciplines intervene with doubts and comments. We were amazed by the children’s ability to master the script, learn the songs and their cues and perform fluently. One or two of them were only six years old!

Cultural Evening

The dance workshop culminated in a cultural evening where the children displayed all that they had learned to an audience of parents, villagers and staff of the various organisations in Sittilingi. Teachers also performed alongside their students. There was no recorded or film music. All songs and music were folk pieces provided live by children and teachers.

The audience was enthralled by the performance. The villupaatu in particular was a big hit. It was very encouraging to have one or two parents go up on stage and express a very positive feedback of not only of the performance but of the school also.

Parents meeting

At the end of the academic year in April, we held another parent’s meeting. Our program  started with a detailed feedback session. All the parents expressed their appreciation of the  cultural evening performance, especially the villuppattu performance by our children. Accounts of parents contribution towards the nutritional expenses were reported. Some of the parents had not contributed anything to the school and the issue of sustaining this school amidst these challenges were discussed by the parents. Creation of a Parent’s Association to get other parents involved in the school was discussed. It was a gratifying sight to witness the parents actively engaged in the discussion about uniforms, fundraising and finances, the shift to the new school, transport problems etc,  A strong sense of involvement of the community was evident.  This is not a school run by just  by one or two people but by the community.

Due to a dearth of good picture books and children’s fiction in Sittilingi, we had ordered books from NBT. These were kept on display during the meeting for the parents to  see and buy. Kids picked the books they  were already familiar with in the school and it was heartening to see the joy of holding the book in their faces.

We think it is important to provide a wide range of experiences to the children. Learning doesn’t happen only in classrooms or behind four walls. We discussed the importance of involving children in household activities or in the field.

Auroville Marathon

Sakthivel took a group of seven runners to participate in the Auroville Marathon on February 11th .

Human chain in Thirvuannamalai

Our teachers and staff joined hands with Marudam team, Thiruvannamalai and rest of the teacher community for a human chain to express our concern at the recent incidents of violence against women and children and to emphasise the need to bring up our male children sensitively as well as to protect and cherish our girl children.

ASHA teacher training workshop

ASHA Chennai conducts a teacher training workshop every May. Rajammal had attended it earlier and this year Ravi participated. He has come back with numerous Math puzzles up his sleeve. It is nice to see the children quiz us on a new one each day.

Becoming Yoga Teachers!

Yoga Vahini from Chennai had conducted a fifteen month yoga course for the nurses in the hospital and three of the Thulir teachers. Practitioners from Yoga Vahini came to Sittilingi once a month for a period of two to three days. The teachers learned how to observe their bodies and the effects different Asanas have on different parts of the body. They also learned how to tailor their teaching according to their students’ age, health and capacities. Yoga is a very simple form of physical activity where the mind, body and breath are synchronised.

At the end of the course, a graduation ceremony was held on June 24th at the Anna Centenary Library in Chennai. Chintamani, Ravi, Rajammal and Anu attended the function.

Visitors & Volunteers

Maya Muehlemann from Switzerland was here for three months. She brought with her years of expertise in teaching English for german/foreign students. She helped us see how teaching English could be stressfree and lively by the innovative use of materials, creation of worksheets, etc. We thank Maya for her efforts and wish her the best.

Niru Ramaswamy came back to spend February and March here. Niru conducted sessions with the children and teachers on identifying our emotions, recognising and acknowledging them and discovering positive and harmless ways of expressing and channelising them. She also helped organise our forest walks and did a lot of craft work with the teachers and students.

In March Lolle and Anne  — medical electives from Germany — spent their free time in the school. They were very good singers and taught the children many English songs. It was amazing to hear the children singing ‘We shall overcome’ with perfect diction and emotion. Children thoroughly enjoyed their singing and the tunes from the ukulele.

Swetha Nambiar —  an artist and old friend of Thulir, — visited for a week in February. The organic farmer’s association had requested our students to do some artwork on the walls of their new Meeting hall. Swetha anchored this project and brought out the children’s creativity to the fullest. The walls of the meeting hall came alive with scenes from the forest, hills, fields and villages. The art has been well appreciated by all subsequent visitors to the SOFA (Sittilingi Organic Farmers Association) meeting hall.

Construction Updates

The school buildings are progressing fast. We hope to shift to the new school sometime this year.  The classrooms have been designed so that they will stimulate the children’s curiosity, creativity and learning.

The walls and roofs of all the classrooms are finished. The classrooms will have steel grill doors and windows so that there is more openness, light and air inside. These are being fabricated on site by the Thulir alumni.

We are very happy that the construction process itself has been a learning opportunity for all those involved. The buildings have been built completely by our ex- BT course students. They have become full-fledged masons and builders.  In addition, three young architects are at present interning on the building site. One of them, Muthu, has been here almost from the beginning. Dinesh has been here for six months and Meenakshi for the last three months. Other architects and architecture students have been coming in for shorter durations to learn practical skills  on site.

All this has been possible only because of your support. Thank you for being a part of our efforts.

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We are happy to share the latest news and updates from Thulir.

The past 8 months have passed quite quickly, without our realizing it. From a near-drought situation in May/July to a bountiful spell of rains in August/ September, our journey has been quite exciting.

Summer Dance Camp and Street Performance

We conducted a dance workshop from May 8th to May 15th for the government and private school children as well as the nursing students from the hospital, all of whom didn’t get a chance to participate in the last workshop at school. Mr. Mohan from Thiruvannamalai was the resource person for this activity.

On the last night, the students put up a very impressive street performance in the middle of Sittilingi village with hardly any props. Almost the whole village turned up! The students sang, danced and performed a street play. The electricity went off in the middle, but no one minded it or whistled or moved away! The show just went on. People used flash lights from their phones and houses and were silent enough to hear everything. All the villagers helped by diverting vehicles, organizing etc. The fact that everybody took ownership over the program felt very good.

Water

We had a prolonged and scorching summer, which led to a severe water scarcity. The hospital team initiated meetings in the villages to talk to people about water conservation measures. The Thulir team also took part in the de-silting of the check dam in Moola Sittilingi village. It was amazing to see how much could be accomplished without any money or machinery, just by getting everyone together.

New admissions and transfers

We had decided that we would limit admissions this academic year as the new buildings were not ready and space in our present campus was limited. So since March we have had to turn away a number of parents who came to us for admissions.

But the situation in the village changed in July. A new road to Karumandurai town (in the Kalrayan hills) became operational this year and a private school van from there started plying to Sittilingi and canvassing for students. Meanwhile, the local government school started an English medium section. Three nurses withdrew their children from our school to admit them in the private school.

The advantages of having a school van to pick up and drop the students were cited as reasons for withdrawing them from Thulir, as we don’t currently have a school van. Influenced by this another 6 children were withdrawn from Thulir.

This incident lowered the morale of the entire team. It also brought home the fact that education has become a commodity even in a remote place like Sittilingi and parents with some salaried jobs would like to purchase what they perceive is the best that money can buy. Their behaviour with relation to this is exactly the attitude of a shopper who drops everything and rushes to the latest brand in town. Some of these kids have been shifted to a new school every year, regardless of the disruption it causes to their education and their emotional development. And very often the paraphernalia ( of uniform, shoes, tie, van, strict discipline and English) is thought to be ‘ good education’.

The parents in rural areas, maybe because they feel they have a lot to catch up on, are worse than their urban counterparts in expecting their children to perform well and put enormous pressure on even 5 year olds to stop play and study. The freedom our children enjoy and the practical way through which they learn have not been understood by these parents. In the past, some of them have openly expressed their displeasure that our children climb trees or go on forest walks or that most of our teachers are tribal.

But this also opened up many questions for us to reflect and critically examine our work for any flaws in our approach. As teachers we are increasingly aware how our children are flowering in an atmosphere of freedom through the questions they ask, the quality of their work, self-directed learning, taking ownership, their concern towards the environment etc. Perhaps the parents didn’t get enough opportunity to witness and understand the learning process that is happening in the school. So we explored the possibilities of opening up various avenues for the parents to appreciate what is happening at our school, opportunities to reassure the parents that their children are actually learning much more than academic skills. We also made changes to our timetables and now have a dedicated reading time after lunch. This small change brought in a complete transformation in our childrens’ reading abilities. It is wonderful to watch our children quietly engaging with a text they chose. It has helped them with reading and spelling as well as boosting their confidence in picking up any story book.

We realised that most of our parents in the valley expect Thulir to help their children to communicate in English and many of them wanted home assignments for their children. We wanted to take an approach that allows us to meet the expectations of the parents without trampling on the freedom of our children. So, we have started giving creative home assignments to our children. However, it is optional. Some of our children want more assignments while others don’t do homework. We also started allowing them to borrow books in order to read at home. We made a number of our own books. The picture books made by our teachers were an immediate hit.

Just after this, some parents from Erattaikuttai, S.Thadampatti and Thanda approached us saying that they wanted to withdraw their children off other private schools and admit them in our school as education here was much better and children were happier. Five children joined us. We now have 41 children coming from 5 villages to our school.

From Scarcity to Sufficiency

As we noted in our last update, the open well – our only source of water – was almost dry and a severe water crisis seemed imminent. Our well at the school site was completely dry. During our discussions, we even considered closing the school early and stopping construction for a while.

Eventually, it was decided to dig a 300 ft. bore well to supply water to the school and for other domestic uses. It was unanimously decided to use a hand pump instead of an electric pump, since that would help us limit our consumption.

The sinking of the bore well happened with great fanfare, excited children and teachers watching the spectacle with wide eyes. At our new school site, there was no water. We deepened our well to another 10 feet, but it was completely dry by July.

Everything changed in August & September, with frequent showers totaling 9 cm (Aug) and 16 cm (Sep). This allowed our well to recharge and at present we are hopeful that we should be able manage until the next monsoon. The stream next to our campus, which was dry for the past 3 years, flooded with water and it was an exciting time for everyone in the valley to see the river flowing after a long interval.

Due to the rains, our morning walks with our kindergarten group has been all the more exciting with lots of bugs, slugs, frogs, birds, varieties of creepers, climbers, flowers to watch and observe. The teachers are having a tough time trying to answer the barrage of questions from the children.

Tree Planting drive

During September children from Marudam Farm School visited Thulir and camped at our new school site. Govinda and team brought tree saplings from Thiruvannamalai. Teachers and children from Thulir and Marudam collaborated and planted these trees on the new school land.

Last year, we had planted around 100 indigenous tree saplings. Of these, 90 have survived despite the tremendously hot summer and water shortage. This year we also made rainwater collection ponds and bunds. This has helped to recharge our well.

A big thank you to The Forest Way and Marudam farm school for their continuous support with our efforts.

Project based learning

As part of our ongoing project based learning approach, we decided to revisit the  project on plants. Our focus has been to help our children observe the wonders of the plant kingdom around us and understand the concepts practically. Every week, children started the project activity by singing traditional songs related to plants.

Since this project was all about plants, we focused on the life cycle of a plant from seed, root, stem, leaves, flowers and covered many topics about plants like seed coat, mono/dicotyledons, root systems, leaf arrangement, venation and conducted experiments to differentiate the soil constituents, to test water retention capacity of the soil, to observe the seed germination process and the root nodules.

Our children were so excited about these activities, they started observing and labeling all the small saplings they saw in their surroundings. The excitement didn’t subside as every day we saw one child or an other curiously observing a strange looking plant and trying to understand if it is monocot or dicot or pulling out small plants and grasses to observe the root system. Of course, they were all re-planted by the children themselves with equal enthusiasm.

It was a wonderful experience to see the children collecting different types of flowers, leaves, busily making prints, dissecting flowers, pressing them, asking many questions in the process. We had an interesting time with lots of fun and the allocated time wasn’t sufficient. Currently, we are doing a project on Food & Nutrition.

Parents meeting

In June we convened a parents meeting. We held an open dialogue on what it means to have a school like Thulir, its necessity, who supports it, how its expenses could be managed etc.

This was followed by a discussion about the parents’ contribution towards the school expenses. After an intense discussion, all the parents came to a consensus towards the quantum of their contribution towards the nutritional costs of their children.

In September, we held another meeting with the parents. We wanted the parents to understand that their children are not aimlessly frolicking in Thulir but are engaged in an integrated learning environment. So this meeting started off with a performance by the children. Then each child went up to the stage and showed something they had learned at school. Some read an excerpt they chose from a book, others told the audience a story or sang a song. The older group demonstrated solar/lunar eclipses through simple experiments and performed a wonderful puppet show.

It was evident from their faces that the parents felt reassured that their children are not just learning academics but are growing up to be a well rounded person. In a discussion that followed afterwards, some of the parents expressed their satisfaction with their children’s progress. They appreciated the individual care given to each child in our school. The recurring theme of “why Thulir? what are we trying to do?” was discussed again, with parents actively expressing their concerns and questions.

It was also decided in the meeting that the first Wednesday of every month would be an open discussion day where parents and anyone else who was interested in Thulir could visit and take part.

Yoga classes

Yoga training by the Yoga Vahini team for the nurses and our teachers is happening regularly in the hospital and we hope our teachers will be able to apply the knowledge they gain in their classrooms as well.
Parthasarathy, Mrinalini and Priya of Yoga Vahini did a yoga session for the children in Thulir in October. This was a not only delightful for the children but a teacher-training session for the teachers as well.

Participation in the Craft Week at Marudam Farm School

Two teachers and 13 children attended the craft week at Marudam in November and learnt various crafts: Making beautiful artifacts from coconut leaf, palmyra leaf, banana fibres, coconut shells, stones, beads, waste paper etc. They came back highly enthused! Sakthivel went as a resource person to teach bamboo craft.

School Visits

Children from Little Grove Hyderabad, Shibumi Bangalore, CFL Bangalore, Payir Thenur, and Marudam Thiruvannamalai visited us this academic year.

Government Approval

We have started the initial steps for obtaining government approval for the new school. We met the D.E.O in Dharmapuri and the A.E.O in Harur in this regard. The A.E.O visited our school. As advised by her, we also applied for the UDISE number for the school. We were invited along with other schools to a meeting in Dharmapuri. We will be able to move ahead in the approval process once we complete 6 classrooms, an office room and toilets and get the building stability certificate.

Palmyra Leaf Workshop

Thangammal & Esakkiammal from Kanyakumari conducted a workshop in December on making handicrafts using Palmyra leaves.

Organic farming

We harvested Samai in October and planted Urad dhal, Sesame, Horse gram. Vegetable gardens created by our kids and Sakthivel are fully functional supplying Tomatoes, Ladies finger, Chillies, ridge & bottle gourds, to our kitchen.

Visit to Dadampatti

We visited the hamlet S.Dadampatti during the last week of December. The purpose of this visit was to try and understand, as a team, the milieu of the child, its family, social life and challenges faced. The teacher team interacted with the parents and elders in the village.

Visitors & Volunteers

We had many visitors and volunteers during this year. Here is a brief summary of their visits.

• Niru from Australia volunteered in Thulir during September. Niru talked to the team about counselling techniques and various craft activities.
• A Doctor couple, Dr. Balasubramanian and Dr. Aruna visited us early this academic year. They expressed their interest in supporting our efforts. When they went back they talked to their classmates about Thulir and brought a group of 15 doctors (all from the 1985 batch of Stanley Medical College) to visit us on October 22nd. We are grateful to them for their encouragement and support.
• Poornima from Marudam Farm School conducted a workshop for the teachers. The session was very lively and interactive, filled with games and activities. Our teachers thoroughly enjoyed it and we were once again reminded of the fact that learning can indeed be fun.
• The hospital receives medical electives from various countries. Several of them visited Thulir as well. Joan C. Dew from Taiwan and Victoria O’Dore from Honkong talked to the children about their respective countries.
• Dr. Sridhar Santhanam from CMC Vellore visited Thulir and interacted with the team. Our team had a lively session with Dr. Sridhar about children, their development, health and the adverse effects of cellphones/computers on children.
• Mr. Thomas from Chennai, did a Ventriloquism show at Thulir and everyone enjoyed the performance.
• During their visits, Rupa from Shibumi, Nagini from CFL interacted with our teachers about their respective schools, their approach towards education, challenges etc.
• Mr. Singaravel & Mr. Kim from Samsung visited Thulir on the 9th of December
• Akshatha from Karnataka visited Thulir in November and Bipin from Coorg visited us in December for exposure and guidance. You can read about Akshata’s experience here
• Dinesh, an architect from Adhiyamaan Engineering College is interning at Thulir.
• Gautam from Hyderabad and Florencia from Argentina visited us in Dec and volunteered at the construction site.
• Maya Muhlemann from Switzerland is currently volunteering at Thulir.

School construction

The walls of six classrooms have been built. Of this, the roofs of five classrooms have been laid. The walls of the sixth classroom are just being finished. Roofing elements are yet to be fabricated. Flooring, whitewashing, doors and windows of all the classrooms are also unfinished. We hope to complete the office, staff resource room and toilets before the start of the next academic year.

 We request all our friends and well wishers to spread the word and help us fundraise for the buildings. A pamphlet that can be shared online can be found in the support us page.

  We wish you all a very happy & rewarding 2018!

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