Gender Equality Day

Accelerating Employability and Equality

A love story called Gajner

India as we all know too well is the place of diversity. And my experience with EduCARE India is indeed characterized by a continuous traveling from a state to another where I am all the time challenged to adjust to the traditions. While the scenery evidently changes under our eyes while traveling by train or bus, so do the people and places. It is hard to describe the immense variety of Rajasthan, Punjab or Himachal Pradesh particularly because I have not had the chance to explore those places thoroughly. 

I am very grateful to be given this unique opportunity and to see a side of India that perhaps few people have witnessed. The desert plains of Rajasthan where the sun is uneatable and sand gets up to your panty. The green and lush plains of Punjab which a rich wildlife of buffalo and birds that enriches the landscape. Lastly, the hilly Himachal, a notable tourist destination where the curvy roads make transportation slow and the climate gap between valley and hill is tremendous. Perhaps in few weeks the chilly Kashmir with the stunning Himalayan range and the notoriously astonishing views.

However, since the very first time I felt in love with Rajasthan and with the little village where I spent the first two months of this incredible experience. The simplicity of life of Gajner and the warm heart of its people will be forever with me. I am currently back to Rajasthan for some annoying and boring bureaucratic paperwork, however, beside the much more intense heat which leads fewer people out, the village and the life here has not changed a little in the past months. The shops where I used to go grocery shopping are still there, the myriad of dogs and cows, tons of garbage littering the streets (SWASH’s nightmare) and the intern’s house. All this with only one thing that differs from before, everywhere is blue boxes, the coolers that will rescue people from the 45-50 degrees Celsius.

Typical alley in Gajner 

I visited my ex host family and their surprise when they saw me after all this time is priceless. I was invited for dinner and they pulled out the best food and drinks: loki with chapatti, mango juice and sweets. A royal treatment. Then as usual the moment of catching up and taking picture came and we all collected dear memories for the future.

Me and my hosting family during my first week in Gajner

Talking about food again (because you must know a big part of our life and work here in India revolves around food), I finally ate again to the local dabha owned by one of the best cooks on earth, Manoj. He welcomed me warmly and started asking questions and we laughed and had amazing time together while devouring kachori and samosa, which are by far the best! The coziness and familiarity of that place, which at sight does not look appealing, is the sweetest memory I have from Gajner. 

Similarly, the interns welcomed me in the best way possible. We talked for hours when I came and we had delicious dinners all together. We slept under the desert stars and combated the heat by making juices and sharing for the cooler (which by the way abandoned us by setting on fire spontaneously). Luckily we are left with fans!

My visa trip to Bikaner was unexpectedly smooth, considering the burden of this procedure and the obstacles encountered such as rude police men and slow internet connection. I got some reward by standing in the A/C of a bank while waiting to pay a fee and at the end of the long tiring day two fresh juices and a delicious late lunch/early dinner.

Many things here in Rajasthan would suggest this is not a place for a white girl, starting from the harsh climate to the insistent gazes of the men. However love means accepting the good and the bad in anything and anybody, and I must say I LOVE GAJNER.

Playing kabaddi during Induction in Gajner

Martina Fraternali - Italy

Education, Training and Development Coordinator 

Sharing Responsibility for the After-School Programme

In the past month, fun club has become increasingly interactive, providing a glimpse into how quickly it could progress into a truly holistic programme which will thrive on the enthusiastic participation of both interns and children alike.

As I prepare to leave EduCARE in the next month, I have recently been concentrating my efforts on assuring the smooth continuation of my projects after my departure. In order to do this, I have been more actively seeking out other interns to lead lessons so that they can become more comfortable with the format while I’m still here to assist and so that they are scheduled to prepare and run classes in the weeks after I leave. While some interns were definitely excited to have the chance to work with children, others were apprehensive, not knowing what to plan or how they can relate it to their projects. I sent around a project manual I had written up to address this problem of confusion or hesitation and met with quite a few people to discuss potential ideas and my experience up till now. In order to meet the children and gain a better understanding of how the programme works, several people decided to tag along to the next lesson (there are also only a handful of people here who knew where the fun-club room was, so showing them the location was a pretty vital first step!).

Expanding fun club to include other interns began last week when Emma ran a finger-painting activity. We had around another 5 interns show up as well…which outnumbered the kids 5-0. There was no one there and the town was strangely quiet for such a beautiful day, so I wandered around trying to round up some of the regulars. They were nowhere to be found, but I did find some children I didn’t recognise who decided to come along to see what we were doing. It turned out the children in Naddi are on holiday right now and many have gone to visit relatives; I believe the ones we did end up teaching were here from out of town because they spoke very little English. This shows the challenge of an unpredictable group – we were lucky it was an arts and crafts focus this week because they could all enjoy the hour without understanding much of what we were saying. Emma had brought paint, paper, some examples of finger-painted peacocks she’d made as inspiration, and – crucially – a big bucket of water for washing up afterwards! While they didn’t seem all that interested in painting the national bird of India, or any other animal, they certainly were excited about using all the colours and by the second sheets of paper colours were blending together and everything was beginning to become slightly brown…

Because we were unable to communicate well with the children this week, there was little educational about this activity, but it was a great chance to interact with some new kids, for interns to become more comfortable with the idea of fun club, and it was a really fun way for us all to spend an hour.

Lucy Di Santo, USA

After School Program Project Manager