The Night before the day after....

We met at 8 pm the day before our departure for a quick meeting. Mohit and Sharmila (Nani) coordinated prior, to understand their workshop, decide goals and have an overall plan. The whole team saw some of the samples she had brought along to get an idea of the women's workshop. Siddharth wanted to switch teams to join the Jute workshop but of course we did not let him :)

Our side table looks full now with stationary and other materials, lots of water bottles and quite a bit of trash!
We unfortunately lost Piyush to a paper writing commitment and though I was a bit concerned, I was assured by a confident Shweta that 'we will manage fine'. 

Kulwant and Koel were missing in action as they were busy planning and buying among other things, Maggi noodles for our lunch the next day, to be cooked on a wood stove. They arrived just as we adjourned, with great confidence in their delivery the next day. 

Bharatji informed us that we needed gate passes as we tried to sail out of the main gate the next morning with 20 long pieces of bamboo we were carrying with us, along with our cameras, white boards etc.. That set several of us spinning for the next two hours as we tried to tie up these administrative details in preparation for our departure.

We called for 4 cars as our entourage of people and goods grew and then we revised our departure time from 8 am to 7 am and then to 6 am! I waited to see when we would actually depart with the professed all-nighter by most of the mentor gang. 

Here's to a wonderful and successful workshop full of learning, fun, enrichment and fulfillment!

29 April, 2015

Day One of Immersion and Learning...

We took awhile to gather the 3 carfuls of people along with all their paraphernalia as we set out for the 2 hour journey to Rasulabad. There were more questions than answers but we all felt well prepared with much to share and give, and much to learn. The student's chatter despite their sleep deprived night reflected the optimistic enthusiasm.

We arrived at Babaji's temple area and were greeted by the village coordinators. We experienced the village way of people based communication as word spread of our arrival and a crowd started gathering full of understandable curiosity, in the initially empty field. We were dismayed at first to see that the 4 spots we had identified with some distance between them were not level ground. 4 large plastic sheets to seat our 4 groups quickly arrived however as we set up shop close to each other for the next 2 days, flexible to keep moving as the sun changed its position, yet clearly defining the 4 separate groups and interests we were addressing and hopefully not encroaching noise levels on each other.

The children's group was a noisy, excited and very large bunch but beautifully managed by Koel and Kulwant as they improvised all along and on the go, as participant ages, numbers, workshop content, exercises and resources all went topsy turvy!
We had planned for 20 but got 40 plus, and many much younger than we had planned. Our workshop leaders did not want to refuse any child hence the setting, and instead they ran parallel activities after dividing the group into an older and a younger one. 

They started with the ever popular paper plane making which the older children loved of course and then progressed to several paper folding activities making boxes, talking crows, balloons and hats. Parachutes from plastic bags, string and stone was a very popular activity. The younger ones did a lot of drawing and coloring, first guided and then on their own and also made the crows and parachutes. Storytelling as transition was fun and insightful for us. The children neither wanted to go for lunch nor wanted Koel and Kulwant to have lunch.

The youth group ended up with a good mix of boys and girls though we were initially given to understand it would be mainly girls because many boys are typically forced to leave the village in search of work. Some girls were torn between joining this versus the women's group doing needlework, which was a somewhat more familiar territory for them. However we encouraged their participation here as we wanted to introduce design thinking and concepts to this impressionable group. Shweta did a wonderful job of introducing the notion of art versus design with visual, printed examples, then elicited examples of the same from their context and then asked them to draw these and discuss with each other. One child remarked after understanding design that 'God is then the best designer' that completely floored our student mentors. 

Interestingly, many even started drawing enhanced designs of these objects, like a walking stick with a stabilizer base so as the elderly coughed, the walking stick would not fall. They then attempted drawing visuals to express words like happy, rain etc. after Siddharth gave a bit of orientation and guidance. We discovered that their color preferences and notions are very different from ours. We next moved them into material exploration using wire, paper, straw, matchsticks. etc. Girls mostly made accessories (ear rings here to match Shweta's dress) while boys made artifacts for the home like pen stands. In the afternoon we lost some participants as they left to harvest wheat. 

The women came in large numbers and enthusiastically took the small colored jute pieces as they worked in cross stitch to make a chessboard pattern. We saw widely varying skill levels as well as numerical abilities. Counting is a key cross stitch skill and some struggled with it even though their sewing abilities were good.

Sharmila and Mohit worked individually with the women and their skill levels became clear to us through their approach, speed and quality on the chessboard pattern. Here's Mohit's rendition of cross stitch principles on the board. Most wanted to take the pieces home as it is hard for them to stay away from home for long periods. Most women of the 23 odd completed their first piece before the end of day and one mother and daughter team even started on a bigger mat. Few who could not, took them home to complete.

The men's group, much to Amit's concerns on whether they would show up or not given that harvesting is on, surprised us by their participation, engagement, enthusiasm, hands on approach and eagerness. One of our learnings through our preparatory visit was realizing how misinterpreted and misrepresented the word 'jugaad' is, and to change the name of the workshop from 'Multi Jugaad' to 'Creative Thinking and Problem Solving'. 

Our team of Amit, Pulkit and Pankaj introduced them to design and local innovation via images, posters, presentations and talks and by showing printed images of everyday jugaad products, explaining that these were designed by people just like them. This excited them a lot. Sitting in a circle with them, showing printed images of local innovations and us drawing on paper as they spoke were all very effective and got them really excited, especially to realize their own potential and using local resources and their own skills. They came up with very interesting solutions to alternative uses for waste products from daily life (Bottle, razor blade, comb, rag cloth, old rubber slippers, tin cooking oil can, plastic packaging, cycle wheel/rim, bora or jute sac, old cardboard boxes). With plastic bottles for example they came up with slippers as well as handles for a cricket bat and a broom. 

Next we held discussions with them on some of their own local innovations, like Sarkanna (2 person agricultural device for raising soil level for sowing), Rat trap (shown in picture), winnowing fan, solar panel, cow dung on wood as fuel, battery charging etc.. We followed this up with ten objects for which we asked them to suggest alternate uses. We found them really interested and involved but unable to express visually so Pulkit kept drawing as they verbalized, as shown below.

We then walked the team to the nearest hand pump, elicited all the problems of using a hand pump and then asked them to create a device that would enable a single person to use the hand pump more efficiently. There were several interesting ideas, a simple one among them, a funnel and pipe combination!

And as last exercise for the day, we introduced them to the problem of creating an alternative device other than umbrella to protect from the sun while working in fields. 

We gave them thermocole as a possible material which 3 groups used quite effectively while one group worked painstakingly and steadily and produced a wonderful design in bamboo and straw (detailed picts are in the photo diary). We later realized that thermocole was perhaps not a good idea as it limited both the form as well as their imagination and limited them from exploring more local materials. They had a tremendous sense of joy and pride after seeing prototypes they had made themselves. 

Today ended with us feeling exhausted, satisfied and challenged. In particular were our discoveries, of how different planning and reality can be, as well the amount of impromptu curriculum adjustment and extemporized delivery that was needed. We knew we learned as much or perhaps more than we taught.

We left the ground for the school where we were to stay the night looking forward to KFC! 

Please click on 'Older Posts' below to read the rest (...a Blogger 'feature':) 

30th April 2015

The Night in-between...

We reached the school premises as we watched village hospitality, of villagers carrying in 'khatiyas' for us (portable beds made of wood and jute cord). Lying on them under the clear sky, we watched day turn to night. Most of our phones were dead with no way to charge them. The moon slowly rose to its almost full glory, two days short of a full moon night, accompanied by a very clear and very cool breeze. It was a calming and peaceful experience, quite elusive in our urban lives.

Pulkit, Kulwant and Mohit set off to Rasulabad town to hunt for our dinner as we relaxed to the sounds of lilting folk songs in chorus village voices. In the meantime, Vinodji and his cousin lit up a fire in the chulah (clay stove) as Pankaj baked a huge batch of potatoes with enthusiastic memories of it from his childhood summers in Rasulabad. We enjoyed the amazing potatoes with a chutney that is local to this area, organized by Vinodji.

The boys returned with chicken and more and we set out to cut loads of onions and peel loads of garlic as our chef set up the wood fire to his liking. An hour and a wonderful nap later, we were greeted to the amazing aroma of chicken curry. KFC certainly lived up to its name!

Some went up to sleep on the terrace of the school while the rest of us stayed down, all enjoying a wonderful night under a starry sky, brightened by the grandeur of moonlight. 

We woke up to bhajans at 4 am and watched the magic of village night turn to day. Subhashji kindly offered us his home to get refreshed while the boys enjoyed the unique experience of showering at the hand pumps nearby.

We felt charged up and ready for another enriching and eventful day. We drove to the empty field at Babaji's mandir to begin our day, wondering what this new day would be like!

1st May 2015

Day Two of Immersion and Learning...

We aimed to start early and had announced this to all participants the previous evening. However, when we arrived, the field was empty. But we experienced yet again word of mouth communication in action as participants soon started to arrive in ones, twos, threes and groups.

 

All teams felt the need for a rapid 'think on your feet' preparation beyond the curriculum, for plans and activities we had carefully created. Koel and Kulwant scrambled to improvise in preparation for the arrival of their energetic and large gang. Shweta and Siddharth improvised too in a less intense manner. Mohit and Sharmila strategised on how to address several of the women's queries from the day before while Amit only worried whether his team would choose them over wheat cutting and show up...but the team prepared in great earnest all the same...

The children's group today first made a paper star and learned how to join all their stars together to make a group crown as you see here. And the wearer was pleased as punch parading in it. 

The older ones in their group then worked with matchsticks and rubber tube, first making 2D structures and then transitioning into 3D structures, in which they used a lot of their imagination. The younger ones were given clay to make objects first with some suggestions, and then using their imagination. They dried their clay objects and had a whale of a time painting these with water colors. We were so impressed with the fine handiwork of one little talented child as he displayed not just finesse but also a wonderful color sense.

The youth group spent a large part of the day doing an empathy exercise, where they interviewed a partner to know them better and then proceeded to design and make a gift for her or him. They enjoyed this a lot and painstakingly made the gifts.

        

While we had plans for a final exercise for them to select an object from their surroundings and redesign it, we found a general reluctance and discomfort with more thinking and much greater enthusiasm for making. So they continued with material exploration and made more artifacts during the second half of the day as well and happily took all their handiwork home.

In the women's group some women who we identified as capable as well as interested then took up a larger mat with a design to embroider.

Most wished to take it home and we permitted them to do so. They arrived at different times with part of the work completed and returned the sample back to us. We identified also a talented mother-daughter team as the leaders who took up more sample designs and the remaining raw materials we had, to hold, manage, monitor quality and distribute after today, to women who had successfully completed their pieces.

We introduced our final problem today to our men's group, to come up with the design of a privacy cover for women who need to go in the fields everyday, in the absence of a toilet. They all agreed that this was a significant problem for their womenfolk. Everyone initially began thinking of brick structures incorporating a pit and ventilation, that must be away from the main house etc.. We then engaged them in how it would be made, its cost, affordability and such factors, with the idea of having them come up with a frugal rather than an infrastructural solution. We introduced some constraints again, like enabling women to go out in the mornings without people looking at them etc.. They then came up with a lot of interesting solutions for toilet privacy for women. 

Again there was enthusiastic participation and much discussion that we enjoyed a lot. Most were one or another version of a portable tent, but had local inspiration behind it, like a mosquito net. One of the tent-like solutions used cloth and bamboo, that could be opened out to install and folded up to carry back home, made as a scaled down model, for which Pulkit donated his bed sheet! Another was similar in concept but used jute. And yet another group interestingly came up with an idea of taking forward the umbrella concept, using an umbrella frame with an additional cloth cover that could alternately be lifted up or pulled down to provide the privacy cover when needed and folded like an umbrella when done - an umbrella with walls to hide. It was really a very interesting solution to have an umbrella that can solve the purpose of being an umbrella as well as provide privacy cover when needed. Each of the groups worked very hard to complete their respective prototypes. 

We had a quick exhibition at the end of day, attended by 2 faculty members from IITK and many people from the villages. We handed out certificates to all participants and then set off again, back on our journey to Kanpur. 

     

   

1st May 2015