Exporting Cambridge

Farewell - Khuda Hafiz for now

Posted on February 25, 2008 by Arti Pandey
Filed Under General | 2 Comments

From our office in Kabul, Afghanistan - many thanks to our blog sponsors

Today is our last day in Delhi, and tonight we fly back to Boston. It has been a hectic trip and I am not sure what to say at this point, except pointing you to our website (which will be updated continually, especially after the current trip): www.barakatworld.org. We need your help now in fund-raising, above all else. We want committed funders and fund-raisers who will walk through the years with us as we grow and strive to improve the quality of our work.

Learning Uzbeki, the proverb on the blackboard says ‘Patience works very well’ at Mullah Kareem Nazar School in Andkhoy, Faryab, Afghanistan

I imagine you know by now that Barakat is a very hands-on operation – we do not truly think of our staff in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan as being far away or far removed from us in any way. On the contrary, their welfare is close to our hearts, and they in turn care for the beneficiaries of the programs they direct.

Confident children at Barakat Qazipur School in Bhadohi, Uttar Pradesh, India

This is not a big development organization with a huge overhead – no, we are focused and careful in our planning and spending. There are two people at the head office in Cambridge, Massachusetts and two volunteers. The remaining 100 odd staff, including teaching staff are in the field and local to the areas they serve.

Shy - not them! At Care & Fair Barakat School in Bhadohi, Uttar Pradesh, India

We care and I wrote this blog, hoping that you too will come to know us and to care with us for the communities we serve. These programs are vital interventions that give people options to shape their future in a better way – they add more meaning to their lives and ours, and I hope in time to come, they will add meaning to your life as well. Thank you for reading.

Teacher Naseema watches over her student at the Literacy Course in Andkhoy, Faryab, Afghanistan

Teachers at a teacher-training course in Andkhoy, Faryab, Afghanistan

A doctor’s visit - for the first time in their life

Posted on February 25, 2008 by Arti Pandey
Filed Under General | 2 Comments

At Kabul Airport prior to departure

As we flew out of Afghanistan, we took one last look around the ring of mountains that surround Kabul Airport on all sides, and wished we were there for Spring – the season when the air breathes life into the trees and flowers. As it is, the onset of Spring, even in Delhi gives the air a soft, cool feeling – in Kabul, it would be just out-of-this-world, no doubt.

The ring of mountains in Kabul, Afghanistan

Possibly, in years to come, we may be able to return there in the Spring. However, we usually don’t plan to be there in the best seasons – going to South Asia in hard seasons of extreme winter and summer is normally how it happens, by default. In a way, it is very good to be there then because we come to know first-hand the difficulties and challenges that face staff on the ground, and accommodate for logistical delays accordingly. It is no good being situated in a developed nation thousands of miles away and being unaware of the ground realities in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. If we are to respect our staff and trust them, we must also know their circumstances as closely as we do our own in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Sohrab had four operations in Kabul for opening his hands which were clinched together by being burnt. He had spilt boiling water on his hands when he was a baby – a very common occurrence in many rural areas in the developing world where the kitchen space with open fires are very close to the living space of the family.

Before I close this blog about Barakat in Afghanistan, I want to tell the readers about a program that we started not too long back in April 2007. It is being funded by Habibullah Karimi, one of the co-founders of Barakat, and is being implemented by Barakat Afghanistan staff. Once in six months, Barakat hires a doctor to do a complete physical check-up on the children in our two schools: Mullah Kareem Nazar School in Andkhoy, Faryab and Besh Kapa Surkh School in Aqcha, Jowzjan. The most common complaints are of skin disease and stomach problems because of the poor quality of water in these places, more so in Andkhoy than Aqcha.

Wakil Agha watches as Dr. Najibullah conduts a physical examination of the children from Mullah Kareem Nazar School

The ground water in Andkhoy is remarkably salty – more so than sea water, and there are almost no sources of collecting rain water and snow melt, being an arid desert plain. We are going to write a proposal to get funding to construct water collection and storage bodies in Andkhoy and Aqcha, since existing water there is both scarce and high in harmful microbial content. Most of the children are very thin because they have worms in their stomach; kidney stones too are common, even in children. Here are some pictures of children Read more

The mood in the air…

Posted on February 23, 2008 by Arti Pandey
Filed Under General | 1 Comment

A view of Kabul from the hill behind Barakat’s old office in Kabul, Afghanistan

…is one of great discontent with the current government and its inability to deliver basic infrastructure like roads and electricity. In Kabul, people complain that even though it is the capital city more money is being spent on re-construction in places like Herat, Mazar and Kandahar. What aggravates this feeling of despair is the perpetual state of house arrest that the citizens of this country are in – to some extent this is self-imposed for in their zeal to protect their women from the eyes of strangers they will make walls around houses and avoid going out even on their own rooftops in the daytime. Then again, even men are wary of the threat of suicide attacks and a haunting sense of insecurity makes itself felt through the daily news of bombings and killings that are carried over the airwaves on radio and TV. Afghan citizens and foreigners are both being targeted.

However, there is little doubt that this is a country for men. Women have a long, uphill battle ahead of them. The extent of restriction on women in terms of their movement and self-expression is appalling. Yet, it is almost identical to the lives of the Muslim women in Bhadohi, Uttar Pradesh, India. However, the difference is that over there I, as an external agent of change, had the freedom to move around and speak to people freely as well as to push the limits of their existing belief structures. Also, education and need together are forcing people to let their daughters out of the purdah (curtain) and into school and college in India. Here we struggle with the issue of getting more girls in our two schools of Andkhoy, Faryab and Aqcha, Jowzjan Province. While in Andkohy Mullah Kareem Nazar School (1^st to 3^rd grade) has 341 students, of which 137 are girls; in Aqcha’s recently completed Besh Kapa Surkh School (1^st to 7^th grade) there are 317 students of which

only 38 are girls!

Boys and girls hard at work in Barakat’s Besh Kapa Surkh School in Aqcha, Jowzjan Province

We have now requested the principal of the school to simply make two classes for each grade – one for boys and one for girls – and fill them up almost equally. What this will require on his part and on the part of the Barakat staff is a certain amount of persuasive home and community visits. But since we were able to achieve fairly high female participation in Andkhoy, we hope to be able to repeat it at Aqcha as well. Each year we will add a class in both of our schools until they reach 9^th grade.

Ali Bahram, Barakat’s Admin and IT Officer and Habibullah Karimi, co-founder of Barakat in front of the newly constructed building for Barakat Besh Kapa School in Aqcha, Jowzjan Province, Afghanistan

Ali Bahram, Barakat’s IT and Finance Officer and Habibullah Karimi, co-founder of Barakat in front of the newly constructed building for Barakat Besh Kapa School in Aqcha, Jowzjan Province, Afghanistan

Chris Walter address the teachers at the completion ceremony of the teacher-training course in Andkhoy for Sowat Hayati, July 2007 (Higher Level Literacy Courses for Women and Girls Only). (l to r) Chris, me, Zohra, Habibullah Karimi, co-founder of Barakat.

For a future to be possible

Posted on February 21, 2008 by Arti Pandey
Filed Under General | 2 Comments

The ancient wood-working skills of Afghanistan still on display (l to r: me, Chris, Wakil Agha and Waleed Osman in front)

It has been an interesting day thus far and promises to continue as such. In the morning we had gone to visit the Turquoise Mountain Foundation and found it a most picturesque place - inside a fortress (and quite literally that due to the security concerns) which houses schools for calligraphy, wood-work and pottery. What was most striking to me was the number of foreigners in the Foundation - it has a massive staff, no doubt, of expats! However, one wishes them well in their endeavor to preserve Afghan heritage.

Girls chosen for the Girls Scholarship Program

Returning to our office, we also came back to gathering information about our own schools and at this point, I would like to tell you about the Scholarship Program for Girls that we want to initiate. We will call it “Takazha-i-Dokhtaran” or Request of the Girls, which is quite true in that the 10 girls chosen for the program have written requests to Barakat asking us to provide them a means to continue their education. Indeed, all ten girls are currently engaged in one occupation only - carpet-weaving, and they dearly want an opportunity to stretch their wings, and think of education as the one means to do so. What we need now are sponsors for the girl’s education - 9 months of education for one girl, comprising one academic session in school, will come to US$550.00.

Gozel and Aliya

Of the 10 girls chosen, each one has her own story. Gozel is from a well-off family, but has been married into a poor one, and as is the custom of the Turkmen she can no longer turn to her own father’s family for help. Consequently, she weaves carpets, goes to school in 10th Grade at the Andkhoy Govt. High School, and aspires to be able to continue but does not have the financial support to do so. She is 20 years old, which is not at all surprising here - strange as it may seem to people in the United States to think that a 20 year old would be in 10th grade. Aliya is 23 years old and attends 9th grade at the same High School in Andkhoy. Her father is paralysed and being poor has no means of continuing their girl’s education.

Hamida

Hamida is 18 years old and attends 6th grade in Andhkoy’s Daulatgaldi Fidai School. She graduated from a Barakat-run Literacy Course from 1st to 3rd grade and thereafter, joined formal school. Her father is no more, and her mother remarried. Unfortunately, this had not led to a happy state of affairs in the family and she is keen to be able to make her own way, hoping, like the others, that education will be the means for her to independence. The things that all the girls have in common is there poor financial background, and their eagerness to continue with their education nonetheless. They will be able to continue with school and in the Afghanistan of today, there is nothing that is needed more than an educated populace able to make decisions for themselves and their family.

At home in Kabul with Barakat Afghanistan

Posted on February 20, 2008 by Arti Pandey
Filed Under General | 2 Comments

Catching up on the news with Wakil Agha

It is our second day in Kabul, Afghanistan - it is turning out to be just as busy as yesterday. Flying over the snow-covered peaks of the Tora-Bora, we landed in the brown landscape of Kabul, thankfully devoid of snow and mud. The airport at Kabul is progressing rapidly and soon, I think it will leave Indira Gandhi International Airport behind which is currently in a state of utter chaos, being under renovation for an undetermined duration of time. It was a pleasure indeed to see Wakil Agha, Country Director, and Ali Baharam, IT & Admin Officer, at the airport. I must say, there is no hospitality in the world like that of the people of Afghanistan, though I suppose at this point I must specify that Wakil Agha is of Turkmen ethnicity and Ali Bahram is Tajik. Though the common people of different ethnicities of Afghanistan are at peace with each other, they nonetheless do appreciate being recognized by their own tribal idenities.

Ali Bahram reading the Cambridge Chronicle on the roof of our office

It is a feat almost unmatched, I think, by any NGO on the ground here that our programs have not only been running since 2003 but we have even been expanding their reach. When Barakat Afghanistan was first registered as an NGO on 16th March 2003, at the Ministry of Planning (now re-named Ministery of Economics), we were No. 249 on the list of NGOs. When Barakat Afg. re-registered on 21st Sept. 2005, we were No. 52 on the list! What this means is that almost 150 NGOs which had originally started operations fell by the wayside or were found to be existing only on paper, when the government looked further into their work. I am so proud of the work we are doing here, and of our staff here who are both sincere and intelligent in their dealings with their own people. They care for the schools, the staff and the students who we educate, and Wakil Agha as well as Habibullah (the founder of Barakat) have the breadth of vision to continue to respond to opportunities and needs, as they come up.

Literacy Courses in Session

We run Literacy Courses for women, girls and one for boys as well, who are unable to attend formal school. This can be for any number of reasons - in some villages where we work there are no formal schools, in many cases girls are not allowed to walk to school even if it is only a few blocks away from home, and often enough parents won’t allow girls to attend formal school. Then again, there are countless girls who went uneducated during the reign of the Taliban - these too are now approaching education at a very basic level. All of these are accomodated in these Literacy Courses which have two levels: Sowat Amauzi (1st to 3rd grade) and Sowat Hayati (4th to 9th grade). Currently, we have 23 Literacy Courses in the northern provinces of Faryab and Jowzjan, serving 725 students in all. We also have two formal schools in these two provinces about which I am still in the process of collecting data. There is so much that is going on here and so much that I am taking down and recording. Possibly, in our next blog I will tell you about the Scholarship Program for Girl’s Higher Education that we are planning, and one for which we will be actively looking for sponsors, but for now I must close and not try my luck any longer - for neither the internet, nor the electricity can be taken for granted here.

At work in the Barakat Office (l to r) Wakil Agha, Ali Bahram and me!

A school for painting

Posted on February 18, 2008 by Arti Pandey
Filed Under General | 3 Comments

Working with the students at the four-month old, yet-to-be-named School for Madhubani Paintings

Madhubani, Bihar is famous for one thing and possibly, one thing only - its paintings. Done freehand, originally by Dalit women and widows, now made famous world over and sketched by women and even some men of all castes, these paintings are true works of art and color. On our last trip to Madhubani, we had set up a free school for teaching girls in collaboration with Shailendraji. We had left the venture in his hands and he chose to begin the school in his wife’s village: Chautha, which is about two hours away from the chaotic, ill-planned, slow-moving but self-content city of Madhubani.

Madhubani, Bihar - a supremely muddled city, which has some remarkable people in it even so!

We hope to sell these paintings to wholesalers/retailers of arts and handicrafts in India and the US, and give a percentage of the profits back to the students. Soon we should have a website up and running showcasing these paintings and explaining the many themes depicted within their complex and rich designs. What concerns me is the growing trend among the young of veering towards brand names, and avoiding the individuality and beauty of handicrafts like these paintings. Indeed, we have a younger generation in the West and now in the Westward-looking East which is too easily led by fashion statements mass produced for them by designers who advertise their product as the in-thing. I wonder indeed if the younger generation is conscious in the choices it makes in food, clothes and fuel - or if indeed it is concerned solely with appearances and too little with intellectual content.

Our hosts in Chautha Village, Madhubani District, Bihar. I was never waited upon with so much diligence and care - their hospitality far exceeded their means.

In the process, we stayed in Chautha village overnight. Yes, there are no sanitation facilities and we had to go into the fields like everyone else! Yes, there is no safe drinking water and Read more

Cleaning the holy Ganges

Posted on February 13, 2008 by Arti Pandey
Filed Under General | 1 Comment

1.20pm, writing from the train on our way from Benaras, Uttar Pradesh to Darbhanga, Bihar. It will be a long journey given that the train started an hour late and the coach attendant has predicted that it won’t reach until 9:00pm, three hours after its scheduled time. Well…that’s alright and the north Indian countryside easily beguiles the time – green and yellow mustard fields, women and men bent over sickle in hand or carrying their loads on their heads, waving children, cows, buffaloes and small village settlements of thatch. 70% of India is still in the village and this is the segment that we serve, in a very small way, through our schools.

Talking with Mr. Mishra of the Sankat Mochan Foundation

Yesterday, in Benaras we met with people of the Sankat Mochan Foundation (SMF) - Mr. Mishra (Director), Prof. Bailey (Consultant from UC Berkeley), Angela (volunteer from Australia) and Meena (The Pacific Institute, California). This is an organization Barakat is going to support with a small grant so that they can continue their advocacy efforts at the Central Government level to get final sanction for their proposal regarding Part II of the Ganga (clean-up) Action Plan (GAP). GAP-I was implemented by the Uttar Pradesh State Government and needs to be followed up by another, since it was palpably unable to achieve their objective of cleaning the Ganga. The local authorities in Benaras have put their weight behind the proposal submitted by Sankat Mochan Foundation but the State Govt. has stymied their efforts by submitting their own GAP-II proposal, based on the same non-functional methodology that they had used for GAP-I. Consequently, the matter is now tied up in Public Interest Litigation at the Supreme Court of India! What SMF needs now is to lobby support at the Central Government in order to get permission to implement GAP-II as proposed by them, which is technologically far more sound that the State Government’s plan, given that it does not depend on electricity for recycling the waste collected from the Ganga. As the readers may have guessed by now, electricity is a precious commodity in most parts of Uttar Pradesh, including the big cities. SMF’s proposal was designed by Prof. Bailey who has been revising it with new developments in the field of waste management, and wondering how it will ever finally get implemented!

Washing clothes on the ghats of the Ganga

That was one part of our visit to Benaras – the other was quite simply the ghats by the Ganga. It is hard to describe the beauty and eternal quietude of the river – a sense of timelessness, of generations past and generations to come – a somewhat sad beauty, but peaceful nevertheless. I am not sure how any one city could have so much character, but it does! Here are some photos… Read more

Meeting the parents

Posted on February 13, 2008 by Arti Pandey
Filed Under General | Leave a Comment

Meeting in Progress: Making-do with our limited physical infrastructure for the present, as we await completion of the new school building

Parent’s voices:

“This one (5 year old boy in LKG) is very good at his studies, but when it comes to an exam he is always in a hurry. I looked at his paper, and he had just left out words from the sentence. I don’t know what to do – he is always in a hurry.”

“I don’t know why he (7 year old boy in LKG) does not talk. He has no friends at home, doesn’t talk to anyone at school. Maybe he doesn’t have much brains. He just won’t listen to anyone and he doesn’t talk. Explain something to him.”

“It is not like he (11 year old boy in 3^rd) has any work at home. I don’t make them work once they are home, but all they can think of is play. Before I can put him down to work, he runs off to play. Now where am I supposed to go and look for him? I have two other small ones to take care of. His father is out to work. You do something. Speak to him.”

“He (10 year old boy in 3^rd) is so naughty. Sometimes, he will just send his bag home through someone else and he won’t even show up for lunch. He will just take off to play with his friends, and you know how many galis (narrow, criss-crossing lanes) there are here. Hours on end, he will spend playing goli (marbles).”

Concerned parents voice their opinions

“She (12 year old gir in 4^th) works hard, but she just doesn’t get it. She takes so long to understand anything. Her brother (10 years old in 3^rd) doesn’t take half as long – but all he can think of his play.”

And all this while, the children were right there – with such innocent and sweet faces, I could hardly believe they were guilty of all this and worse! A few of them did explain that they had to work at home as well and so often did not find time to study. It was very worthwhile and illuminating for me to see the level of interest that the parents had in their children’s education, though I should add that failing once in a test or subject is not considered deplorably shameful! More than 95% of the parents/guardians showed up for the Parent Teacher Meeting with their ward, and each one of them got to speak to the teachers and see the Monthly Test Results.

The teachers respond

There is scope here for raising the awareness of the parents regarding the absolute necessity of cooperating with the teachers, and for convincing the teachers that study and play need not be widely divergent, after all. I did convince one parent to send her child to school everyday without fail, as well as explaining all around that it is not okay to say to a child that s/he is lacking in intelligence in any way! The teachers with me struggled to convince the parents as well, and share with them their concerns, while the parents reciprocated likewise. There is a healthy atmosphere of wanting to give and take on both sides – nothing is hidden or festering – there is an active, open exchange of ideas and issues. I see this as fertile ground to grow new and positive ideas of change in. I believe that in the year to come we will be able to address these concerns at our schools in India.

An engrossing discussion

To teach or not to teach

Posted on February 10, 2008 by Arti Pandey
Filed Under General | Leave a Comment

Barakat Qazipur School nears completion. (from l to r) Amzad Ali, Sadru, a friend from Nepal and Habibullah Ansari in front of the school building which stands on land donated by them to Barakat.

Barakat Qazipur School is currently under construction. It will, inshallah, be completed by July this year and then we can move our classes into a proper school building. For now, the school is being run in a building in the same locality, which is falling short as the number of classes and students in school increase each year. We are now upto 4th grade and will include 5th this year and be a full-fledged primary school. The children are full of beans and ready to go - to the new building, that is, and really anywhere else that their teachers’ imagination will take them to :). And I see great potential both in them and in our teachers, who are already doing a great deal.

Teachers at the Barakat Qazipur School, Bhadohi, Uttar Pradesh, India

These women, ranging in age from 22 to 37 years, are capable, educated, confident and caring teachers. It has been excellent watching them speak their mind about their work, their pay and of course, their homes. This photograph is lacking one teacher, but I have since had the chance to speak to her as well. Of the six teachers at this school, only two are married. The rest are unmarried and we at Barakat are greatly concerned that like a few others, these teachers too will be compelled to leave off teaching once they get engaged. This seems to be the policy of the middle-class, rich and all but the abject poor in Bhadohi. A greatly conservative town, it is very restrictive in terms of freedoms for women. It is not that the teachers are not educated - they have done their Bachelors and even their Masters from the Girl’s College in Bhadohi and the co-ed college in nearby Gyanpur, but though that increases their value as matrimonial prospects, it does not deter their in-laws from demanding that they cease to work as soon as they get engaged!

Talking to the teachers about policy and practice

I believe I understand their situation rather well now that I have been living with a conservative Muslim family where the women maintain purdah (literally, ‘curtain’) from men, other than their blood relatives and servants who have been in the house for decades. Their lives are cloistered and curtailed in the extreme and they truly believe in the purdah as being required of them to maintain distance from the evil/lascivious eye of strangers. I have been taken to meet their relatives in Bhadohi and have been hosted with such excess of good food and inquisitive questions, that I came away those evenings with my head reeling! I have been amazed and yet, not really, by the very narrow boundaries that become of the lot of married women in Bhadohi - they do not step out, except in their black burqa, they visit only other women in their homes, and have few occassions for real celebration - marriages, childbirth and festivals being the main ones.

Looking up to their teachers as role-models at Barakat Qazipur School

When I think that our teachers too will lead such bounded lives Read more

A very large snapshot

Posted on February 10, 2008 by Arti Pandey
Filed Under General | Leave a Comment

Class Seven at the Care & Fair Barakat School, Bhadohi, Uttar Pradesh, India

Its been another hectic day and I am determined this time to get a blog in come what may. My greatest hesitation in writing has been my inability to process all the data I have collected thus far from the two Barakat Schools in Bhadohi. I have now nearly 15 hours of tape-recorded information and numerous photographs that complement each meeting!! It has been four days now that I have been to school daily and met first with the teachers individually, and then with select students from each class on the next day. What I have now is a snapshot of the teaching-learning community in the Barakat Schools. We have a predominantly poor, disadvantaged student body which is nevertheless composed of many very smart, confident, forthright children :). It has been an absolute delight talking with them and I enjoyed getting the shy ones to talk, and the talkative ones to hold back so that the others may get in their two pennies worth!

Tackling a difficult subject matter - Lower Kindergarten at Barakat Qazipur School, Bhadohi, Uttar Pradesh, India

Our children come from large joint families - grandfather, grandmother, uncles, aunts, cousins, real brothers and sisters, parents all live together under one roof. Families have as many as 36 family members living in 5 or 6 room houses. Whenever I would ask them how they studied after returning home, they’d assure me that but of course, they study - they go on the roof and study till its light; when it gets dark, they light the lantern and study in the room, but they do study! At this point of time, it is hard for me to verify the truth of this statement, but I will try to get some feedback from the Parent Teacher Meeting at the Barakat Qazipur School tomorrow. The teachers insist that the children do not study at home at all, and need to be guided by hand in school. I imagine the truth lies somewhere between these two extremes.