Posts Tagged ‘Education’
IDEX Executive Director, Rajasvini Bhansali, is currently traveling in India on evaluation field visits with IDEX partners, and potential catalyst grantees.
Gravis SHG Member with her Daughter
Rahul Mishra, GRAVIS Program Coordinator, shared his journey of working in rural development. He explained that what he learned theoretically in a rural development program was less useful than the practical application of working in 15 villages with their unique conditions, cultures, circumstances and people-led development.
Rahul works with a team of 2 other field workers who employ participatory methods to build trust and relationships with the villages they serve. Natwar, one of the field workers, could have worked in the private sector for a lot more money when he graduated with a MBA. But coming home to his village and getting involved with the women’s self help groups (SHGs) motivated him to get involved in community driven development.
Natwar explained that initially the men in this rural community of Hemapura were reluctant to let the women in their households group together. But after witnessing the success of women’s self help groups; they have begun to create more opportunities for women to participate in the village’s planning processes.
I was able to join a meeting of the Bismillah Self Help Group. This is a group of Muslim women who have saved more than 10,000 rupees in less than a year. They have managed to support each other in buying goats, sewing machines and even send their girls to school. At this particular meeting of the Bismillah SHG, the women discuss their concerns about not being able to recruit a teacher for the girls’ school that they’ve just established.
Bismillah SHG has worked with the local Madrassah (mosque) to offer a room to start this school. But this may not be the best solution. There is some discussion between the SHG members and the GRAVIS field workers about whether or not holding a secular school on the Madrassah premises might give the impression that the school is non-secular. The women suggest approaching the local panchayat (governing body) to ask them to donate land to the budding school. This way the school will be clearly non-denominational. The school would then be more accessible to people from all communities and castes.
There is much discussion amongst the young and old and everyone gets to express their opinion before a decision and a plan is made. A small group of women will approach the panchayat for support.
It’s the first day of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting in Islam. The chairwoman of the Bismillah SHG speaks to us about how all people are one under Allah’s moon and sun. This is what the group celebrates. The women warmly share with us their ritual of cooking special foods to break fast daily.
Over my now sixth cup of chai today, I learn about how the group overcame initial dissensions to build greater unity with each other. They now work together on meaningful projects, both for their homes as well as for the community at large. They talk about sharing crops, water and just as importantly, insights about their children. And so begins that important time of the year and as the sun slowly sets over the desert. I am grateful again to celebrate grassroots action in all its glory.
IDEX Program Officer, Katherine Zavala, is currently in Mexico on field visits to our grantees there.
I was told it was going to be a rather long ride from San Cristóbal de las Casas to the autonomous municipality of Roberto Barrios. They were right: it was 6 hours.
I was accompanying 2 members of DESMI’s staff, Pedro and Estela. Both are responsible for DESMI’s programs in the Northern Zone. Today were to go to Roberto Barrios to conduct chicken-raising workshops with young people there between the ages of 12 and 16.
It’s interesting to note that the autonomous government in Chiapas operates its own education system. It is bilingual (Spanish and a local Mayan language) and reflects the local context of the communities’ reality. The youth we were to meet today are in their secondary education, a 3-year program that includes developing practical skills to enable them to be productive in their communities.
There are around 95 secondary students in this municipality and they’ve all chosen different professional tracks. The 20 students that are participating in DESMI’s workshop today have chosen the veterinary track, and today they were going to be learning how to raise chickens among other livestock-rearing activities.
In this group of veterinary students, I learned there were 2 teachers who accompany them to DESMI’s workshops. DESMI’s staff come to this municipality every 2 months for 2 to 3 days at a time to follow-up with the workshops and bring new training materials for the teachers. Between DESMI’s visits, the teachers continue teaching the students based mostly on indigenous knowledge and in the local Mayan language.
In the middle of the afternoon, we finally arrived. The sun was blazing with a vengeance. The workshops weren’t going to start until later, as the students had spent the first part of the day in the fields learning how to cultivate maize.
I asked Estela from DESMI what we were going to do in the meantime and she said, “We’ll meet with community members and then prepare for the workshop. Time moves slowly here.” I had time on my hands – something that would be quite unimaginable in the United States. It was peaceful to be in a place where was no rush or time pressure.
A whistle blew. “It’s bath time,” Pedro explained. “All the students go to the river to refresh themselves from the hot weather.” I followed them and found myself at a beautiful, crystal-clear river that was just calling at me to jump in. I had forgotten my swimwear. But then I saw girls swimming in their jeans and t-shirts. I dived in fully dressed and enjoyed a wonderfully refreshing swim.
Later, DESMI’s workshop reviewed what the students had learned so far. They had already learned about the common diseases found in chickens and their names in their Mayan languages: Tzeltal and Ch’ol. But they didn’t know the terms in Spanish nor what medicine to use to treat them. That’s where DESMI came in and assisted them in finding the correct terms in Spanish and the corresponding treatments.
DESMI asked the students what they’d like DESMI to train them in regarding chicken raising. The students’ responses included learning more about diseases, how to build and maintain chicken coups, and more on general chicken care. In this way, DESMI can structure their new workshops in response to what the youth are wanting to learn.
It is now the end of a long and interesting day and, as Roberto Barrios is far from San Cristóbal de las Casas, we are going to spend the night here and DESMI will continue the workshop tomorrow.
I left Guatemala City today to travel 1 hour into the highlands to the state of Chimaltenango where I wended up a long winding road to San Martín Jilotepéque. I was visiting APROSADSE, an organization that IDEX has been supporting for over 3 years now, and who has focused its programs on health, education and agroecology. When I arrived, I was invited to talk with 3 of APROSADSE’s Board members to discuss the work of APROSADSE and the Board’s participation.
It’s Nicomedes second year of being President of APROSADSE Board, but he has been participating in their programs for 25 years! A married man with 3 daughters, Nicomedes recognizes the positive impact APROSADSE has had on him. As a child he only finished fourth grade before he had to find work to help support his family. When he was a grown adult, he saw that APROSADSE was offering a long-distance education program for people over 15 years old to finish primary and secondary education. He took the opportunity and completed his secondary education. He’s happy that he completed that education program and now he works as one of the health promoters in his community.
Perfecta and Marta were the two other Board members present, one a midwife and the other a health promoter, like Nicomedes. Marta, a single mother, was also inspired to participate in the long-distance education program, but only completed the 7th grade “due to circumstances of life,” However, her training in health, provided by APROSADSE, was enough to help her find a job as an assistant nurse in a health clinic in Antigua, a popular tourist spot relatively close to Chimaltenango. Now she has returned to San Martín Jilotepéque to work with the Ministry of Health. What does she do there? Well, there is only one doctor who travels once a month to her community. They are called mobile doctors. For the rest of the month Marta is the doctor in her community.
Perfecta hasn’t been able to go to school. Instead, she has been focusing on her work as a midwife to her community in the village of Varituc. As a Board member, she comes to all the training workshops that APROSADSE offers including health and agroecology. The health trainings have really helped the quality of her work as midwife. She received a midwife kit that APROSADSE distributed through their health program, which she is grateful for because now she has the proper tools to do her job.
Two years ago, when IDEX visited APROSADSE, the health program was just restarting (after a long period of hiatus) and served only 22 communities. Now they help 130 communities. Almost all the communities within San Martín Jilotepéque! Last year they trained 80 health promoters and 66 midwifes. In addition, they offered training in nutrition to 18 groups of 270 participants from the communities. They’ve been also strengthening their relationship with San Martin’s health center to serve many more people in the town. One of the things that impressed me was that they remodeled their warehouse in the basement into a day care center so that the mothers can bring their children to APROSADSE’s office when they want to attend training.
Not only a midwife, Perfecta is able to help her community with livestock rearing and some agriculture projects. Even though she does not work in agroecology herself, she can still help community members due to her knowledge that she acquired by attending to the agroecology workshops at APROSADSE. Last year, APROSADSE was able to train 22 agroecology promoters from 13 communities. Agroecology focuses on livestock rearing and transitioning from conventional farming to organic farming. APROSADSE also has a veterinary store at their office, which serves 416 people from 32 communities in curing animals, providing treatment and selling medicine at affordable prices.
In addition to the long-distance education program that Nicomedes and Marta participated in, APROSADSE has a scholarship program. They gave scholarships to 137 students last year to study primary and secondary education. Another activity APROSADSE carries out is a “summer” program (summer here is from October to December) to 181 secondary school students, giving classes on a range from subjects such as environment, micro-enterprise and sexual transmitted diseases. Like FUNDAESPRO, APROSADSE also involves the parents, and have met with 80 parents 10 times last year to talk about different subjects such as nutrition, environment, interpersonal relations, pregnancy, etc.
Through their agroecology program APROSADSE implements a microcredit initiatives, where they promote group savings and facilitate monthly technical assistance to each group. When APROSADSE distributes microcredit to a group, it does it in one of two ways:
1) Provide microcredit to a group for a group income-generating project; or
2) Provide microcredit to a group, but for individual income-generating projects.
APROSADSE also supports individual microcredit outside of a group, these are approved by the Board. They target community members who can’t form a group in their community yet want to receive a microcredit to carry out an agroecology related income-generating project, usually after attending APROSADSE’s workshops. One of the great things about APROSADSE is that their workshops are open to everyone, and that’s how many people come to learn about APROSADSE’s other programs.
These are not all the activities that APROSADSE is carrying out, but already this can show how they’ve grown since the last time that IDEX visited them. I’m looking forward to meeting the people that benefited from these programs when I start my community visits tomorrow.
Photo credit: Marlon Garcia
