life in Ahmedabad...

During the last few weeks, I had opportunity to visit the Darpana academy quite a few times: to hear Nimo sing a bit of hip-hop to us, to watch the week-long festival of Indian classical dance (I went twice) and to tremendously enjoy the French jazz band Ozma, performing their own music but also collaborating with the Darpana Musicians in a unique performance (see video!). and of course one has to have a pudina-lemon (a deliciously refreshing mint and lemon juice), when one goes to Darpana...

What a beautiful opportunity it was also to see all the progress made and the final outcome on Bolo 11, the preschool that the architects team delivered while I was here. After seeing all the different models at home, witnessing discussions, seeing them come back dirty and stained, but happy... it's finally there and in use! :) Well done!!

End of March, the Craftroots fair was held in Ahmedabad. Once again, it was an amazing opportunity to connect with Gujarat craftsmen, look at beautiful objects and textiles, and indulge in some shopping... I reunited with the Bhandini craftsmen that Tim and I visited 2 years ago in Kutch, we felt like family!

I am now back on the road! I just left Ahmedabad yesterday and should arrive in McLeod Ganj, Himachal Pradesh, tomorrow morning... quite excited about the sceneries and temperature to come!!

Album: ahmedabad

Other activities at the Blind School

I didn't have a specific role at the Blind School, but rather tried to do things when it seemed to make sense.
This included connecting with external volunteers and helping them play new games with the children. or introducing math teaching approach for blind children, as found on a specialised website. or organizing a workshop with the teachers, working together on how to improve the teaching approach. This workshop yielded several ideas, which should be implemented when everyone returns from the summer holiday, in late June.
As I should be back at the school at some point in July, I'll hopefully have some good news! :)

Album: educational work at the Blind School

awesome!

Today, the Blind People Association (BPA) held an eye camp at the Blind School, Gandhinagar - checking over 40 children in a couple of hours.
As a result, 11 children will get glasses or other appropriate optical devices and will study on enlarged prints rather than Braille, taping on their 'low vision' potential (as opposed to fully blind).
A couple of others might be getting surgery, depending on further tests to be done.
The teaching team embraced the event: Illaben, the teachers' principal was there during the whole session, took notes about each child and picked up follow up actions, like to contact the parents, as the case may be. Nitinbhai, the blind computer teacher, organised the event, leveraging his connections at the BPA, and, I think, will be the point of contact with the BPA in the future.

Needless to say, I'm very happy, and excited to see how it unfolds after the 'summer' holidays. [in India, the summer is in May, June, and children return to school around mid-June].

Love!

Decorating a wall at the Blind School

A project had germinated through late night discussions with volunteers: involve the children in decorating their school, through a medium that they could touch and feel. The whole idea was to involve everyone, explore the creative ability of the children, and their appetite for such activities, and bring a nice touch of color and fun to the Blind School in Gandhinagar.

I was a bit scared about such a project: both really hands on and somewhat artistic, trying to take everyone on a journey beyond the language barrier...
It was a journey alright and a beautiful one as you can discover in the pictures below! long discussions with volunteers who had lots of ideas but were for the most part too busy with their own beautiful projects (building pre-schools etc); broken English and broken Gujarati talks at the Blind School reaching to different degree of comprehension, or incomprehension! ; getting lots of input and feedback on the design, the most critical one being to ask the children what they wanted; and then getting started, step by step, without being 100% sure of where it was going and or what help I would get.
The beauty of it is that it eventually seem to happen by magic: people would give me advice and I would simply put them in practice, volunteers would show up unexpectedly when I most needed them, or I would start to remove the old paint with almost my bare hands and someone would come up with a much more efficient solution, and the kids would simply love touching and experimenting whatever we would be sticking or doing to the wall, the staff would throw me big smiles or ask questions and touch the wall, developing further an understanding of what we were trying to achieve.

So all in all, it was a real collective effort and delivery: with blind and partially sighted children playing a key role at each stage, the staff being enthusiastic and providing whatever was missing, volunteers who came once or many times (especially Aparna, who was also dedicated to that project for a whole month and helped tremendously with her language skills and sweetness!), others who were coaching me on the process making sure the focus was still there, the 3 women artists who came and did the mudwork, learning to involve the children, Jaggatbhai who gave so much advice, Brinda, who was determined that the children should own the wall!

Enough words, enjoy the pictures below and the small video!

Album: Blind School Mural