Dear Friends,
New year wishes from Thulir Sittilingi, We are happy to share our latest newsletter with you. Hope you enjoy reading it.
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen
or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.” -Helen Keller
Participation in Running Events
Our students and teachers gained so much joy and meaning from participating in the Anandayana Run on June 4th! This is a completely volunteer-driven – and very inclusive – running event that brings together socially, economically, physically and neurologically diverse participants while also supporting their causes! Thanks to Santhosh and friends from Runner’s High for initiating and organising this!
“One All” Frisbee Camp
Varsha from the “One All” group in Gudalur visited us for 10 days with her team of young Adivasi frisbee players in July. The One All Trust helps to improve the lives of youth in marginalised communities in India through Ultimate Frisbee (or simply, ‘ultimate’). This is a self-refereed, mixed gender, non-contact team sport that is low cost, easy to learn, and can be played anywhere. Ultimate is unique because after every game the players sit together in a circle – called spirit circle – to express and discuss feelings, challenges, triumphs, conflicts and empathy. This makes it an ideal tool for developing values and socio-emotional competencies in young people and help them cope with stressful situations. The game also creates platforms for youth to come together, think about and discuss larger issues.
Frisbee sessions were conducted in Sittilingi village, Thulir school and Paalakuttai village and hospital. On the first day no one from Sittilingi came forward to play with the Gudalur team. They were all shy and self conscious. But as the days went by, the fun filled warm-up activities in smaller groups attracted more and more people, until on the final day around 200 people of all ages and genders played in the open ground in the middle of Sittilingi village with complete abandon and fun! This was one of the rare occasions that this central village space has been used by women and children to play! Even once darkness set in, there were young women and men dancing away into the night!
Workshop on Alternative construction
Dr. Yogananda and his team from Mrinmayee, Bengaluru, have always helped Thulir and THI with the structural engineering aspects during the construction of all of our buildings over the years. In July we, along with Mrinmayee, conducted a 3 day workshop in Sittilingi on “Mud and Alternative Construction” in Sittilingi.
There was a diverse group of participants: They came from various states in India. Their ages ranged from 16 to 60. With regard to their profession, we had the whole range from architecture students to professors to masons to department heads and businessmen. But over the course of 3 days of learning, doing and building together, they bonded so well as a group that they progressed beyond architecture to even discuss deeper questions of life!
This made us realise the importance of such forums for people whose interests do not lie on the well-trodden paths of life, to simply be able to find a community of like-minded people to feel less alone and gain the courage to follow their convictions, as well as be able to connect, share and seek support from each other!
Food Project
This July and August, our theme was Food. We did projects on topics including the nutrients in food, balanced diets and the food cycle, as well as projects based on different foods in different cultures, different recipes and stories/songs about food. The 10-year-olds came up with their own recipes that they wrote down and one afternoon, they treated the younger group to two dishes that they cooked themselves from their recipes!
As a grand finale, teachers and students got together and cooked a variety of delicious dishes for the whole school as well as guests. Soup, vegetable rice, raita, curry, salad, ragi puttu, eggless whole wheat cake and vadai were some of the dishes.
Most of the cooking was done outdoors under trees using three stones for the stove and firewood! That it is possible to use the bare minimum utensils and equipment and still dish out a gourmet meal for 75 people is a valuable lesson that one could learn from indigenous communities.
Enjoying sports day regardless of the blazing sun!
Teachers’ Exposure Trip
The teachers enjoyed a complete break from housework, husbands/ wives and children on a 4 day trip to Gudalur, Ooty and Kotagiri! In Gudalur, they stayed with the “One All” frisbee team in Thorapally.
Driving through the Mudumalai forests and spotting the wild animals, visiting an adivasi village, interacting with the villagers and tribal teachers, comparing notes between the villages in Sittilingi and Gudalur, discovering the underlying similarities, visiting the Ashwini Adivasi hospital and Vidyodaya school, visiting and learning about the ecological work and value-added forest and organic products at Keystone, Kotagiri, were all fascinating and inspiring experiences! Swetha one of Thulir teacher shared her experiences about Gudalur trip Read More.
They also enjoyed visiting and staying at Anu’ s parents ‘ house at Ooty and a brief visit to the tourist spots there.
Government Recognition for the School
We are very happy and relieved that we have finally received a certificate of recognition from the Tamilnadu Government! We are now officially a recognized school!
Respecting Tools
Dussehra is not normally celebrated by the tribals of Sittilingi. We have been very careful about not imposing mainstream rituals and religions on the tribal community. So while the entire state was celebrating Ayudha Pooja (A festival to worship the tools and machines that we use) we thought it was a good occasion to get the children to think about all the objects and tools that they use daily and teach them to respect and care for them without bringing religion and mindless rituals into it.
We felt that in today’s ‘use and throw’ culture which has led to climate change and global warming, caring for the things which one uses daily and properly maintaining them is essential.
Book Fair
Teachers and students visited the book fair at Salem. They thoroughly enjoyed it! In this digital age we are happy that a day among books is still enjoyable for them!
HomeComing! (Thulir School Alumni Meet)
“I feel nostalgic! I wish I were back in KG so that I would have 5 more years here!”
“Let’s dance! Let’s read story books! I feel like I am back home! Its so good to be back home!”
These were exclamations from our school alumni when they came here on the 26th of December for a day long get- together! We sang and danced together, painted and made paper earrings, played kho-kho and had a session of deep sharing – of triumphs, of difficulties and of challenges surmounted!
Nature Walks and Ecology Classes
Vinod , an ecologist from Marudam, comes down to Sittilingi every week to take us on fascinating nature walks! We discover new marvels of nature every walk, with Vinod’s guidance. Back in school, Vinod explains the science behind each sighting and also shows us amazing videos of the birds, insects or plants that we encountered on the walk!
One such nature walk was conducted in the Forest Way Ecological park in Thiruvannamalai and our 9- and 10-year-olds climbed the hill there with Vinod.
Parents’ meeting
We had two very good parents’ meeting this term. The one in December was especially well attended by most parents, and we had a highly interactive discussion. The parents brought up some problematic issues and the discussion around them proceeded quite amicably.
Inspiring through Cycling
It was a great pleasure for Balaji and us to host 80 cyclists and their 20 odd support team for lunch on December 27th. They stopped here enroute while cycling from Yercaud to Thiruvannamalai. This was part of a week long cycling tour organised by the Tamilnadu Cycling Club.
The cyclists were from all over the country (plus a few international participants) and came from every walk of life, diverse professional backgrounds and were of all ages. We were especially happy to meet volunteers from Asha for Education, Silicon Valley among them as Asha has consistently supported Thulir since the very beginning! To know more about the cycling group <<Read more
Visitors and Volunteers
We are overjoyed that Swetha has returned to Thulir after a gap of 4 years! She engages the children in English and Art.
Ram and Archana, along with their two daughters are on a year long exploration of alternative learning spaces in the country. We wish them smooth and fulfilling journeys.
9 children and 2 teachers from the Centre For Learning school, Bengaluru, visited in December.
12 9th-standard children and 2 teachers from Rishi Valley School also visited in December.
Harsh and Srimathi, have taken a break after their medical studies and volunteer often at school. Harsh took some Geography sessions while Srimathi has started helping to catalogue the library.
Many young parents from the cities have visited, wanting admissions for their children at Thulir. Several of them have stayed for a week or more. We find that after Covid the number of young parents reaching out, looking for alternative places to live and school their children has increased.
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Thank you very much for the trust you have placed in our integrity and our work and for your generosity that has kept this work going!
Wishing you all a wonderful new year, a year which will bring you happiness, energy and hope in all that you do. A year which will lead us from
darkness to light,
from conflict to peace.
Let peace fill our hearts, our world, our universe.