Fwd: Mutual introductions

[Venkat Krishnan]

Almost every day now, I am encountering someone who participated in DaanUtsav, but we had not heard of at all. Please see this mail below from a group working in the villages of UP on alternative education and how they put up "wish trees" in those village education centres :-)!

Yesterday, at the Ashoka University in Delhi, Rahul Nainwal of iVolunteer and I spoke to about 100 Young India Fellows who had come in from various parts of India. Met several of them who had been earlier involved with Bhumi, MAD and other orgs, and shared how they had participated in DaanUtsav. One ex TFI fellow shared her Gift Compassion experience and how she was moved to tears by the reflections of her students. Another ex-Bhumi volunteer shared his experience of how students from their "shelter" for underprivileged kids took it upon themselves to get back other such kids off the street and back into the shelter, by using "peer to peer" communication :-)! They apparently won one of the DFC India awards and were proud of it.

There was an ex-Professor from a college in Vijayawada who shared how their students ran collection drives and campaigns in their campus and how moving the experience was. And finally a former Student Union member from Stella Maris College in Chennai (yes, Aarti- I know that you know what they did ;-), shared a really moving story of how the students decided to meet the needs of all students on scholarships- students themselves contributed money and ensured that every "food coupon student" had a scientific calculator or books and stationery or whatever else they might need. 

Nice, na ;-)!

regards

venkat

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rahul Aggarwal <contactr...@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jul 20, 2014 at 12:05 AM
Subject: Re: Mutual introductions
To: Venkat Krishnan <venk...@gmail.com>
Cc: Ravi Gulati <ra...@manzil.in>, Ridhi Pathak <ridh...@gmail.com>, Swatantra Talim <swatant...@gmail.com>

Dear Venkat Sir,

Thanks a lot for replying and introducing us to Sunil Sir. We have also written to Sunil Sir requesting for an appointment during our trip to Ahmedabad from 2nd to 5th Aug, We are extremely grateful to you and will continue to seek your help and guidance in the near future as well.

As Ravi Bhaiya had already written about us, we are keen in doing something on alternative education and are working towards opening a democratic learning campus in U.P. Currently we are running two rural learning centres - one at Ramduari village near Mahmoodabad in Distt Sitapur catering to 50 muslim girls aged 6 to 14 yrs and second at Quila Paasi village in Mohanlalganj in Distt Lucknow catering to 30 boys and girls of the similar age.

We would like to share with you that we are deeply impressed with the concept of "daan utsav" in which children at our Ramduari learning center wrote their wishes on a tree as well as made gifts for each other during the "daan utsav" week. We would like to get involved in the process and take this concept to many more children. Please let us know how we can participate in this utsav at a larger level.

We have the concept in mind wherein we intend to remove the inequalities in the society which does not let a child to do what he or she is passionate about because of the pressure created on account of caste, class etc. We plan to give children the space and freedom to pursue their passions through a democratic learning system. Such a system could operate through three programs:

1) A democratic learning campus: A campus where children explore and engage with their interests and passions.

2) Self-directed learning projects for children in mainstream schools: A personally challenging project developed by each child in different areas like Creativity, Career Exploration etc.

3) Summer School: A 2 month "tinker lab" for the children to explore and identify their interests.

We are committed to take it forward and would seek your inputs on the same. In case you can suggest some ideas/feedback/questions which can take us to our goal, please let us know as it would be a great help for us. 

Thanks a lot once again and we will keep bothering you. We would like to meet you whenever we are in Mumbai and do let us know when you are in Lucknow so that we can catch up with you.

Thanks & Regards

Ridhi n Rahul

Swatantra Talim