JULY/AUGUST 2019
The Rural Changemaker OUT-OF-THE-BOX! Published by we-magazine · www.rural-changemakers.com · hello@rural-changemakers.com
Open School Experiment A new roll out Our annual beach party is hard to top! Happy Holi! Medical Camp – first step made! Anganwadi is cleaned!
Instead of sending out emails – as we did earlier – we’ve now created a newsletter. We call it Out-Of-The-Box! It will provide you out-of-the-box news from Janwaar and our rural changemakers. It’s more like quick shots, not as deep and profound as our newspaper and book. It’s a way for us to say thank you to all our supporters and keep you updated – because without you, all our activities wouldn’t be possible. We hope you like these four pages as much as we do – please do provide feedback! And if you decide that you don’t want this newsletter, send a message and we simply unbox you! Best as always,
If you want to support our activities in Janwaar please donate to: The Rural Changemakers e.V. · Vereinsregister Berlin Amtsgericht Charlottenburg · VR 36642 B Finanzamt für Körperschaften I · Berlin · St.-Nr. 27/678/57308 Berliner Sparkasse · IBAN: DE44 1005 0000 0190 7388 98 · BIC: BELADEBEXXX Paypal: hello@rural-changemakers.com
JULY/AUGUST 2019
Open School Experiment
Brajendra, Ajeet, Anil, Asha and Arun in their apartment right across Prakriti School.
Together with Prakriti School we have designed an experiment which will hopefully help us, to escape the education trap we are in. Since January of this year five young Janwaar kids, Asha (20), Arun (17), Anil (15), Ajeet (15) and Brajendra (16), who somehow stood out, are in Delhi for a two year pro-
gram. What we hope to achieve – some people say it's nothing short of a miracle – is that at the end of our experiment these kids will pass at least the 8th grade exam under the NIOS (National Institute of Open Schooling) and be able to pass on their ”knowledge“ to the other smaller kids back home in Janwaar. For this we developed a very special curriculum – a mix of ”regular“ school subjects, sports and the arts, online courses and Skype sessions as well as moral science, computer science and media literacy. Reading books and news is an important part as well. As assistant teachers they polish their presentation and speaking skills and understand the meaning and the various forms of learning. The Five live in an apartment just across the road from the school. While breakfast and lunch is provided by the school, they need to take care of their dinner and week-end meals. It’s crucial to keep the house clean, manage the shopping and the accounting. Yes, we do have budget restrictions. They all have smart phones and share two notebooks to better understand the online world. Every week one of them is going back to Janwaar with a very specific ”village topic“, for example water-management, cleanliness, waste or paper. At our Villa they work with the younger kids on these topics.
A new roll-out The Skateroom, a social enterprise based in Brussels, Belgium, supports skateboarding initiatives. In cooperation with huge brands, first class museums and well-known artists from around the world they produce ARTBOARDS. They sell them on auctions, in museum shops and online. From these proceedings they help to finance skateparks and education programs in Afghanistan, Cambodia, South Africa and now in INDIA. Janwaar will get a new skatepark! Yeah! I met Charles-Antoine Bodson, the founder of The Skateroom, last year in London and he liked our story very much. We’ve kept talking and soon after we signed a deal. The artist Walead Beshty, Los Angeles, USA, has designed some wonderful ARTBOARDS for us which are now on sale. We receive 15% of the proceeds. This money helps us to shape the landscape around the new venue and pays for the groundwork! Thank you SKATEROOM! We are very happy to have your support and for sure this new skatepark will rock Janwaar.
BU: Inverted RA4 Contact Print / Processor Stall (YM: Los Angeles, California, November 9, 2017; Fujicolor Crystal Archive Super Type C, Em. No. 152-017; Kodak Ektacolor RA Bleach-Fix and Replenisher; Kreonite KM IV 5225 RA4
JULY/AUGUST 2019
Our annual beach party is hard to top!
Fun at Ken River.
I live in Madla, 35 km away from Janwaar, right next to Ken River. The kids love this place. Last year we had our first beach party – it was such a huge success that the kids were demanding to make it an annual event. And that’s what we did. On March 23, forty kids came in three auto rickshaws from Janwaar to Madla. They brought our three tents, sleeping bags and blankets. And plenty of good vibes. At
our end we prepared 100 balloons filled with water for a fun “water combat”, 200 bottles of drinking water, a huge kettle with fried rice for dinner, 100 eggs and 20 loafs of bread for breakfast! It was HUGE fun! The kids took an extended bath in the river, threw and flipped stones, relaxed in the hammocks, danced to the music and enjoyed being kids!
Happy Holi! Every year we celebrate Holi, the festival of colors. And every year it’s extreme fun. All the kids from our Open School Project in Delhi came back home. They brought organic colors – and, as you can see they were used abundantly. No one could escape! At the end we spontaneously decided to go to the elephant camp to feed the elephants bananas. We squeezed 34 kids into three auto rickshaws and off we went :-)
Holi at Villa Janwaar.
JULY/AUGUST 2019
Medical Camp – first step made!
Dr. Sethi enjoying village company.
This was overdue! Finally in early April when the temperatures were still bearable, Dr. Sethi, a retired paediatrician from Gurgaon, and Bharti Batra, chairperson of Prakriti and initiator of the camp, arrived in Janwaar. They brought primary medical care (vitamine E, de-worming medicine, fever, malaria and diarrhea) and educated especially the women how to prevent malaria and other diseases which
are quite common in the village by taking care of hygiene and basic food rules. It was highly appreciated in the village. Over the course of two days more kids and parents joined, villagers came and asked Dr. Sethi for advice and happily took the medicines. From now onwards Dr. Sethi will visit every three to four months. It was a great start and it really touched people’s hearts.
Anganwadi is cleaned! Each village in India has an Anganwadi. It’s a government institution where especially the small malnourished kids get lunch. Since more than two years we provide fruits for the kids – so in addition to the lunch they get a banana, apple, orange, mango – whatever is in season. On average 35 children come there every day. Right in front of the Anganwadi is a huge open public space. Unfortunately the locals drop all their garbage there. It stinks and looks like a mess. The water pump adds to the mess – it’s surrounded by a large puddle, a paradise for mosquito flies and source for all kind of infections. Finally we decided to clean up the entire place. It was a common effort. We filled it up with miti (mud), laid out stones, built a small “nala” for the effluent water, installed dust bins and educated the people. Let’s see where it leads! 12 granite slabs were laid out around the water pump.