“The best thing that I saw at the Thulir cultural evening was this group of kindergarten children dancing away ( off stage, behind the audience!) to the songs that their seniors performed on stage. At that moment they did not worry about the world, they had no teachers to make them “behave”., and they weren’t embarrassed or shy. Maybe they were just being children?!
The space that was provided for them was a space where they could be who they were. There were no adults to bend their minds so that they think more like them..
I read somewhere that ‘children have the strangest of adventures and are not troubled by them.
We all know that it is we adults who fret over the small stuff and forget to be in the moment. It is a valuable lesson to learn from the Thulir children.
The best thing they can have for now is for them to let them be themselves, and not snatch their childhoods away from them. I feel jealous of the true childhoods that the Thulir kids have!”
– Dr. Pravin. Tribal Health Initiative, Sittilingi Village.
Run to Thulir
Santhosh has been a long time friend and supporter of Thulir. Over the years, he has been motivating, guiding and supporting our running programme. He writes:
“During a visit to Thulir many years ago, I realised the immense talent and enthusiasm the children had and how physical activity could be a potent way of educating them and improving their self-esteem. Yet, there was hardly any space for physical activity in the Indian formal educational system. With my involvement in various grassroots efforts, especially experiences with training children for running, I saw a confluence of both my passions – running and working for the education of the disadvantaged. We started training the children there for running and in fact, this was the origin of Runner’s High, a wonderful community of runners who change lives through running.”
Santhosh, Mani and Krishan from Runner’s High, Bangalore inspired all of us with their ‘Run to Thulir’, running all the way from Bangalore to Sittilingi between October 29th and November 1st.
In Santosh words :”Mani, Krishan, Chandra, and I have always liked to run long distances. This running we do is not about breaking records, showing the world what we are capable of, doing something superhuman, etc. Our running has always been about creating a larger meaning, enjoying the process, and inspiring/being inspired by others. Our goal for every year has been a target event that also raises funds for a cause and makes a true difference in lives on the ground. This year we chose to raise funds for Thulir and in our discussions with them, we realized that building a library for the school and helping many other government schools in the area was a real need. Instead of running to various other cities, locales, etc., we decided to run from Bangalore to Thulir itself, bringing everyone’s attention to the cause and meeting the community that we want to get involved with.”
To read more about the run >> Read More
Painting workshop
Akash Yaligar and Roma Patadia, two architects and artists, have been conducting travel journaling- sketching and painting workshops in many places over the last year. They conducted one such workshop in Sittilingi from August 20th to 22nd.
Akash writes about the workshop: “We felt it was not just an art workshop but much more than that. A workshop purely made for the heart! Where people can learn to sketch as well as witness the sustainable way of living and serenity of the place itself!”
The teachers, doctors and children enjoyed playing and experimenting with paints and colours, light and shadows, under their gentle and expert guidance!
Building with mud
Have you ever seen 8 and 9-year-olds building a complete thatch roof entirely by themselves completely unprompted and unassisted by adults? We would never have believed this either if we hadn’t witnessed it ourselves.
It all started when we made small child-size bricks for our children to build with, as the theme for the month was houses. The children used those bricks for a while to humour us, but soon outgrew them! They went around collecting leftover real bricks, bits of sheets and tiles from various construction sites and soon started building real houses. They soon found many opportunities to build their own rooms by adding one or two walls to the corners of the school classrooms!
House building became a frenzied activity carried out with much passion and enthusiasm, snatching any free time the children got: before and after classes, lunch time and snack time! It was fantastic to watch the way the children worked – their passion, team work, effortless delegation of work and leadership. Children who were perceived by adults to be academically weak excelled here! Children who were troublemakers in class and were constantly blamed by others were well behaved and fully engaged here!
One group of girls finished their house and had a house warming ceremony, complete with handwritten invitations to all the adults and groups in school, kolams and other decorations around the house, boiling milk over a wood fire and providing wild fruits and simple snacks to the guests!
After all the effort they put into completing their house and the house warming ceremony, we were astounded to see them breaking their house that same afternoon! They wanted to add another room and alter the design!
Only then we realized that for children the process was more important than the product! They loved the activity of building a house, but the finished house didn’t interest them because there was nothing left to engage with there. So they preferred to demolish the house and start over again! Only we adults are fixated on the end product and want to preserve it to show off!
Training of Construction Artisans
Some of the construction artisans that we trained in Sittilingi are now building in Thiruvannamalai. A group of Marudam School teachers and well wishers have purchased a newplot of land to the south of Marudam and are building three houses there.
Krishna has been training the artisans on site while helping each house owner fulfil their dream designs in the best aesthetic and ecological fashion possible.
Dancing to our heart’s content
All of us at Thulir love dancing and we eagerly look for dance instructors who can teach us new dances! This time we had two exceptionally talented dancers who were both excellent in teaching dance visit us!
Denis from Delhi visited twice and taught western dances!
Christy, an obstetrician and gynecologist, taught not only the teachers and students at Thulir but also the nurses and doctors in the hospital many dances over the course of a month!
Cultural programmes
A cultural programme was held at the end of November where the Thulir, Hospital, SOFA and Porgai teams showcased everything they had learnt under Christy’s guidance. The 200 people who attended thoroughly enjoyed the show. Christy’s choreography and the hall decorations he had organised were brilliant!
At Thulir, every Wednesday we have what are called student assemblies where each group if students goes up on stage and puts up a performance of their choice. These performances, especially the plays, have steadily improved in quality and become very enjoyable. We thought the parents should also see them.
So we had a cultural evening for parents in the first week of January where the children re-performed all their Wednesday songs, dances and plays for their parents.
Tamil Nadu Alternative Education Network meeting.
The annual meeting of the Tamil Nadu Alternative Education Network was held at Thulir this year from December 3rd to 5th. 32 educators committed to the cause of learning, teaching and nurturing with a deep focus on the child, the environment and society interacted and shared experiences, perspectives and thoughts.
This group met online before and after the meeting and also prepared a draft of their suggestions to be sent to the state Education Policy Committee.
Parental support
Parents are in constant and continuous interactions with our teachers about their children’s academic performances. Parental expectations are quite high and teachers are often disheartened because they find it difficult to convince the parents of the quality of our education.
But 60 sets of parents think highly enough of Thulir to undergo considerable financial and physical costs, efforts and hardship to bring their children to school every day, since we don’t have a school bus.
A recent incident showed us even more clearly how much parental support we actually had.
A few children and teachers had nausea and vomiting after lunch one day. As a precaution we informed the parents and took all the children and teachers to the Tribal hospital for observation. This news spread through the villages, and it was vastly exaggerated in the telling! All the parents came to the hospital. It turned out that the millet, varagu, if improperly harvested, can become what they call sokku varagu, and this can cause temporary nausea and dizziness if eaten. However, village elders also told us that the antidote for this is tamarind!
Despite the shocking and sensationalised nature of this incident, not one parent complained. Instead they reassured us, saying they had all experienced this at some time or the other in the past. They calmed down the odd trouble maker, and assured village officers and others that there was nothing to worry about. It was a huge relief to have their support at this stressful time, allowing the teachers to focus on the children’s well-being.
Visiting the Book Fair at Salem
All the teachers and their children went on a day trip to the book fair in Salem in November. The teachers came back with their bags stuffed full of delightful books for the family.
Interaction with the government school children.
Our weekly classes in the government schools at Palakuttai and Nammangadu continued with more emphasis being put on hands-on, activity-based learning and crafts.
Suresh continues his evening classes for government school children in Palakuttai village.
Visitors and volunteers
- We are very happy to welcome new residents to the valley, Kavya and Mallesh, a couple from Nellore, Andhra pradesh. Their search for a good school for their 4 year-old son Abimanyu led them to Thulir, where the simple, down-to-earth life style appealed to them. They decided to shift to Sittilingi and live on the school campus. Kavya is now volunteering in Thulir, while Mallesh works in Porgai and Abimanyu is a student in Thulir!
- Swetha continues to be associated with Thulir, visiting every so often, making illustrations for our workbooks and conducting online English classes for the teachers.
- Vinod, an avid bird watcher and ecologist from Marudam visited often and accompanied the Thulir team on birdwatching trips and tree walks in the forests!
- Suresh, Sasikala ,Chintha mani and the students from Palakuttai village participating in the Bangalore Marathon.
- Students and teachers participating in the Marudam Craft Week—a well loved event. Thanks to Marudam for hosting this!
- Discovering the hills around us—Teachers and students enjoyed frequent Treks up the hills around us!
- Visiting Eechangadu—Ravi’ s village
“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.
Delicious ambiguity.”
– Gilda Radner
As we emerged from the depths of the covid waves, it has been really fulfilling “taking the moment and making the best of it” as a team with all of you !
We are truly grateful to all of you for the belief you place in us. Thank you for your support.
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