Aaranyak: A Rural Alternative Learning Space

Study tours:

Study tours are a way for us to keep learning from people who are implementing similar ideas. 

Sambhavana Institute:
Sambhavana institute is situated in Himachal Pradesh. It is an alternative learning space for children and youth to build different perspective on different systems that we operate through. They also run an alternative school for primary children of the village. The children learn through doing practical things.
Aavishkar:
Aavishkar is also situated in Himachal Pradesh which teaches maths and science to children in very practical and fun way. Instead of mugging up children can learn and understand the principles with concept clarity.
Lok Mitra:
Lok Mitra is a wonderful grassroots organization in a small village called Dedhuki in Rajkot district, Gujarat. It is initiated by a Gandhian couple. They have done several experiments with active support and engagement of local communities. They are running a Kindergarten, Community Development Work etc. With children they run after school programme called Killol. Here the children learn many innovative activities through which they can earn something. Their latest initiative is called “Kshala” which is a Self Designed Learning space for village children. The children plan their own learning using the Gandhian principle of using Hand, Heart and Head. All the three are given equal importance. These children are usually school dropouts and there are more girls. They not only study their but also manage their whole space. They cook and eat together. They live with community living principle. We learn a lot by interacting with these young people and the founders themselves. We also observed and interacted with the local community and children of kindergarten and Killol. This visit was very useful for our Aaranyak project.

Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan:
K.M.V.S. has been working with women and their collectives since eighties. They have helped in building more than seven women’s collectives. The leaders of these women’s collectives and the grassroots women are in leadership positions today. They are also working with adolescent girls.

Hunar Shala and Karigar Shala:
Hunar shala and Karigar shala works with the Artisans’ community. Hunarshala revives vernacular method of architecture and construction and give them a modern twist. Karigar shala trains youth in vocational skills like eco-construction, carpentry etc. The youth learn to live independently and learn about dignity and pride in these traditional and vocational skills.

Shishu Kunj:
We met Shri. Rameshbhai who is a Gandhian and has been working with children in Kutch for decades. He is working with children to educate them with principles of Gandhiji. He is also an editor of a magazine called “Shaswat Gandhi.”
We visited ‘Dhanvantari’ school which is associated with Shishu Kunj. The school is for children with special abilities and needs. We played cooperative games with deaf and dumb students of the school. We also learnt about their project with four different communities of nomadic tribe. We also had a deep interaction and mutual sharing about our work and learnt about theirs with the core team of Shishukunj.

Networking:

Meeting with Shri Dilipbhai:

We also met Dilipbhai who has rich experience of over four decades of work in tribal areas and he enthusiastically supports for inner development of the team. He gave us suggestions to develop our inner strength further. 

A Global Conference on “In search of wellbeing: Rethinking Education and Decoding Economics” :
Bhoomi college, Bangalore organized a Global conference with the theme of “In search of wellbeing: Rethinking Education and Decoding Economics.” The conference put emphasis on environment and climate crisis, education in schools and learning space as we are also a prominent part of the system. Isha from Shaishav participated in it. It was good to learn a few new concepts and also network with many like-minded people and groups.

We also met some educators who are working in Dediapada from past few years to understand situations of education and to understand about children and how they learn.

Due to very heavy monsoon in Dediapada and flooding our team was not able to do work at Dediapada. We are hoping that from next month we will be able to do more work on the ground.