Indias first Waldorf School in a rural space
Sadhana village is situated in a spacious valley about 4 hours drive away to the south of Mumbai. Although the big city of Pune is not far away this is a very rural place. Here the women still do their washing in the early hours of the morning in the river, and the water buffalo are still driven by a herdsman to the water side. Their horns are painted red and very often they have colourful ribbons adorning their necks. None the less, time has not stood still in this place. Many families have a motorbike, on which at least four people have a space. In these motor rickshaws, canopied tricycles, actually only have space for three people but here at least 15 persons are made to fit…
Mostly rice and sugar cane is being cultivated. In the gardens all kinds of vegetables grow. Many which we know, like beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbage and peppers, but also special kinds of beans and bitter cucumbers, aubergines and chillies. The last rain storm caused a lot of damage, as the rice was just laid out to dry on the fields, and now this muddy soil was covered with ankle deep water. Many of the sugar cane blades had fallen over. This hit the local farmers hard as they mostly live from hand to mouth.
The surrounding wooded hills are partly under environmental protection, there are many birds, also monkeys and small deer. After sunset small and bigger bats go hunting for insects. Here there is more than enough: dragonflies, hand sized butter flies, big, really big blue beetles (5cm) , who when they are in flight make the sound of a little motor saw, and off course here are mosquitoes too. Here there is an endless sound of chirping, humming and croaking. This time of year is the dry season with a comfortable 25 – 30°C during the day and 15°C at night.
In the middle of this valley lies the village of Sadhana, a Camphill Home for disabled adults in need of care. This Sadhana-village project has many activities – among others, a women’s project and as of late a Waldorf kinder garden. The first in a rural area in India!
The first steps toward a future Waldorf School
Two groups of children between the age of 3.5 and 6 years of age have been cared for by three women - Chaya, Sushma und Dipali for the last five months. In July of 2010 class one starts. In this place it is not so easy and the lack is great in many things, especially a trained teacher.
Those who are qualified go into the cities and don’t come back to the country side, as payment is truly meagre. Our kinder garden teachers – by Indian standards – have only a pre school education, and still need further training. It is very important for the development of the school to have a good start as the parents measure its success by that of the schools in the bigger cities. Therefore a compromise must develop between the rote learning methods of the state schools and Waldorf education. The chances are good as a village school teacher has about 80 children to care for and after a few years many children do not return to school…
Here there is not a lack of children. India is a very young country. Since the beginning of November I have been working with three women on the foundations of Waldorf education to give them as much material as is possible which they could, their circumstances allowing, transform and immediately put to use. In the morning I am with the children in the classes and do rhythmical games, paint, Eurythmy and help teaching English as the teaching medium in the school will be in English. Thus the great concern of the Mr. Deshpande, the “father” of Sadhana, remains to find qualified teachers or respectively do in service training. Having training once a year is not enough.
For this year I can be here for a few months, however, if the work is to continue regularly costs for travelling and remuneration has to be financed. For the growth of the school it would be ideal if I were to return in regular intervals to “teach the teachers”.
In our seminar we worked through how important it is to make the environment beautiful for the children. We took the first steps to creating a development friendly environment for the children without garbage lying around and beautified the kinder garden and the school classes (part of an old rice mill). We were also able to recruit the help of the local high school pupils at an international school (Mahindra College) to build a small play ground with a sandpit and a swing. We had to prepare the earth with lots of care. Before work could begin the ground had to be hit with sticks to eventually get rid of snakes. Here are cobras, small poisonous grass snakes and crabs that use their pinchers to nip at you.
With the help of some of the women from Camphill we are sewing little dolls and gnomes to replace the plastic imitations of animals, spider man, Disney figures and dinosaurs. Especially Indian women have a fine sense for beauty. Although they are very poor they wear the most beautiful coloured saris and jewellery. They were immediately inspired by the Waldorf dolls. The children here are very loveable and are spirited. They love to dance and sing and participate in Eurythmy with enthusiasm, they also love to paint, at best every day even though it is not so common here.
Last week we started skipping and used a tree stump that had toppled over as a balance beam. This took some time as we were missing a saw. But that is how it is here in India. One is not able to instantly gratify ones needs, rather use the highly developed art of improvisation – to make something out of nothing so to say. The priority of what is important and what one can take on is very diverse in Europe.
Help is urgently needed
Most of the people here are happy if they have something to eat for the day. Therefore the parents here are not able to pay any school fees. A contribution of 5 Rupees a month (10 cents) was thought of to do away with the idea that schooling is for nothing. A ride by buss of about 10 km costs about 8 Rupees. And so all hopes rest on help from outside. Here are some industries here that are profitable but they only support institutions where they see that it is worthwhile. And therefore the first years of the school will be completely dependent on financial donations from abroad. Also later, no state can be expected, as a rule private schools don’t get funding. As this is to be a school for farmers and workers, money will remain tight. It would be a great support if a kind of sponsorship can be found. Money is needed for school fees for the children, training of teachers, for school materials like paper and pencils.
Every kind of support is welcome!
Ute Meuser, Flensburg
To top Stand / Update: 12/2009