This is all new for me, the blogging, the raising funds, the awareness. It's much easier to go about doing what you do without any attention and added processes, although it's important to share the passion, the "cause" just like you'd share anything. If it's to inspire, to gain support or to increase an awareness of the goings on of a community struggling and the solutions we've found and the the things that have failed.
The work I do in Calgary is just a part of my chipping away at the mountains of trouble our society, whether in the microcosm of community or in the larger context of national and international tangles, has produced. Children have always been where my heart has gravitated to, so I've started a tradition to travel abroad yearly, when I have a summer's month or two off from teaching at my home-school, and open classrooms in orphanages.
It's India, the children, especially the girls, who are in the most need. They are in orphanages, in crowds, given away because it's the boys everyone want. They get a nominal education in government schools, they don't learn English. Upon finishing their basic education, learning the appropriate way of carrying out common household chores, they are married and go to the homes of their husbands to continue the cycle of poverty and disadvantage. There's a chance for change here, there's a chance to get these girls when they are young, there's a chance to teach them, before they get told otherwise, that they are worth more than the dusty schools and crowded thatched roof classrooms that are in the business of producing wives not women. Last year, I opened a classroom in an orphanage on the tip of the continent, Madhurai, Ballar Illam, I trained a teacher, I brought material and I made a classroom.
The original intent of my trip was to provide the girls with a playmate, someone to help with chores, and while this sounded worthwhile when I was here, planning my trip, it soon turned into a short term and useless endeavour when I reached my destination. The girls didn't need help doing their chores, they needed a spark, a light in the otherwise dreary world of 5:30 am chores to all day school to evening chores, waiting for a husband or some other way out of the place they were in. They were beautiful, the material I brought was just enough, they were smart, they loved every minute of it. The at first hesitant hands, exploring new colors, new letters, new numbers became excited and confident, curious and insistent. It was the most inspiring thing I'd ever seen.
This year, I'd like to focus my efforts on a different part of India, specifically, Pune. In Pune, there's a place called Maher, meaning "Mother's Home" in Marathi. It's a place for women escaping domestic violence and abusive or life threatening situations. Most of the time, these women have no place to go and children in tow as well. It's these children I want to draw out, to alleviate the trauma they are suffering at the hands of an unforgiving and violent chain of events. They will break the cycle of anger and poverty that has brought them to Maher if given the chance. In the month I'm at Maher, I'd like to train a teacher in Montessori method, set up a classroom and give these children a chance to hope and dream. At this time, I've been able to put together material for the school through private donations and just need to cover my travel costs there. India is very far away and it costs a pretty penny to get there, I'm talking to a few companies, looking for some kind sponsors who are interested in the work I do, enough to support it and send me across an ocean. If you are interested, and I hope you are, in helping, there's a donate button at the end of this. Any amount means the world to me, eventually every such Act of Love will pool to become waves of change. So let's make some change.
1 comments:
This is AMAZING!
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