Aaranyak: A Rural Alternative Learning Space

                In the month of January and February 2019, Aaranyak team stayed at Pomlapada block, Narmada district in the project location and conducted Balmelas (children’s fair). Balmelas were on the themes of paper craft, science toys and body science, and cooperative games were used in between to create a fun and learning environment. Balmelas were conducted in Sejpur primary school and Almavadi girl’s school with strength of 51 and 113 respectively.

                Other than Balmelas, Aaranyak team has spent a lot of time in interacting with people who have been working in the field of education, health and development sector. Michael, Mamta, Dr. Harishbhai and Chaulaben are few among them who have been working in these tribal areas since many years. They shared their insights about Aaranyak project which the team felt very important. Chaulaben, also participated in the brainstorming session along with Aaranyak team. The group discussed about the core values they would like to hold on in Aaranyak, do’s and don’ts at a personal level, their personal vision for Aaranyak and what they would like to do towards it. The whole idea of this brainstorming is to bring alive the collective vision for Aaranyak.

                Apart from the regular activities, the team had an interesting experience during an unplanned day. The team decided to take a forest route towards Kaanjal which is the last village in the border of Gujarat and Maharashtra. The team ended up in a school of this village, during their assembly time. The team received good reception from the school teachers and asked if they can do some activities/games with children. It so happened that, the team which thought of doing couple of activities ended up doing complete Balmela with 110 children. Children thoroughly enjoyed the whole process and the teachers mentioned it would have been really good if we had informed them earlier. They would want to have Balmela with all the school children. In the midst of planned agenda, overwhelming response like this from a completely unscheduled event kindled new energy in the team.

                Aaranyak is going to be an open learning space, where a lot of sustainable activities like organic farming, renewable energy, biogas, eco-construction, water recycling, rain water harvesting etc. will be practiced. These activities once practiced, will become a model to replicate in the nearby villages. To implement project at such a large-scale, Shaishav needs a land of about 10 acres in these areas. In the month of March, Aaranyak team has spent time looking for land for this project.

Watch this space for more updates on the project in the coming months.

MONTHS: OCTOBER TO DECEMBER

During this quarter we mainly focused on team training, networking and building relationships with children. 

Life Beyond Development: One of the important value for Aaranyak is environmental sustainability. We had a 3 days workshop with Shaishav team members on this topic in the month of October. We explored stories behind development phenomenon, and how it impacts our environment, people and health. We learnt about stories of water, mobile, t-shirt, waste, etc. We used different mediums like movies, games, discussions, field visit to create the understanding.  We had a participation of 11 members from our team.

IDEC: International Democratic Education Conference was held at Bangalore on 15th-21st November. Democratic schools from all over the world came, and gave presentation about their space. One member from Aaranyak team also participated in this conference.  Different people shared about how to connect nature in education through activities and stories, importance of free play in education, connecting local issues and people in education. The belief that children can learn by themselves and only need a space and exposure became more firm.

Meeting with Sewa Rural: Sewa Rural is an organization which is actively working with tribal communities of Bharuch and Narmada district from last 37 years, and their focus is on health, development and livelihood. Sewa Rural is also our potential partner organization for Aaranyak. We had several meetings with the team of the organization to get a better understanding about the local communities and challenges of the local area. They also supported us in choosing the base in Pomlapada village of the Daidiapada block. They also helped us to connect with some local leaders, youth and former local staff of SEWA Rural who may provide us the information, situations and need of the local area.

Inauguration and Balmela: On 13th December, 2018 we formally inaugurated our new initiative, Aaranyak in Pomlapada village, in the presence of village children and leaders, and school principals. We also had trustees and members of Sewa Rural on the Inaugural day. The land owner Mr. Sam Sheth was also present and he expressed his happiness that this place is being useful for such good activities. On 13th and 14th December, we organized 2 Balmelas in schools nearby. In Samarpada school which is a Kendravarti Shala (Pay Centre School), we did Balmela on topics like Human body and various systems of the body, cooperative games, making scientific toys, paper craft, etc. with a participation of 145 children. The second Balmela was held in Samarpada Ashramshala with 150 children on the same topics. We got a very good response from children during the Balmelas. We observed children showing keen interest to understand the concepts behind the activities and also shown increased enthusiasm during the outdoor activities.