Wishing you a Diwali that sparkles, soothes and is a continuous celebration of the spirit that brightens life. Let the lamp inside you glow at its brightest. Hoping that our news letter adds to cheer and festivities!
Sittilingi Run.
Yet another beautiful, happy and exhilarating Sittilingi Run took place, this time in April!
The event had runners from every age group. From Dr. Ravi’s father all the way down to many of our 3-year-olds who ran along with their parents!
The Run, which was initially scheduled for February, got postponed due to some tensions between two villages. But it ultimately went off very smoothly and harmoniously.
This was an occasion for all the teams from Thulir, the Tribal Hospital, SOFA, Porgai and Vanavil to get together, and they joined forces amazingly! This was our first time introducing prior registration and a token registration fee. The registration process was also decentralized and handled by volunteers from different villages. And it worked! Around 300 runners participated enthusiastically! This included around 50 runners from Thiruvannamalai, Chennai, Bangalore, Runner’s High, Ananya Trust, Rishi Foundation and Payir Trust.
Thanks to Santhosh and friends from Runner’s High and Sai Vishwanath Memorial Trust for supporting the Run in so many important ways!
Nature Walks
Though vinod was not coming for the nature walks this year, teachers are continuing the walks with the same passion and energy inspired by him.
Sightings on our Nature walks From Top Left to Right : Forest Morning glory, Indian Laburnum, Lantern fly, Crested serpent Eagle, Robber fly, Bush hopper.
Participation in the inclusive summer camp
Our students and teachers participated in an inclusive summer camp organized by SVMT Trust to provide children and teachers an opportunity to live and engage with children from varying marginalized backgrounds and varying physical and mental abilities. Living and engaging in structured experiential learning activities (outbound learning) helped mitigate the various misconceptions about neuron divergence and sensitized children to respect the varying abilities of other children.
The camp took place at the Spastic Society of Karnataka and the Pegasus campus.
A few glimpses from our daily craft classes
Art and craft with natural paints and flowers
Participation in Runs
Anandayana Run
Hyderabad Marathon
A special thank you to Balaji, who ran the Marathon to raise funds for Thulir!
A few glimpses of our academic classes.
The ever-growing Thulir community
One of the most heartening aspects of our work over the years has been having the most amazing people from all over the world visiting us, being moved by their time here and soon becoming a part of the Thulir community. The ever widening community of friends of Thulir gives us the strength and energy to carry on with our work and make a tangible difference here.
Mani from Runner’s High, who has been supporting Thulir for more than a decade, is now visiting and volunteering in Thulir for three days every week. We are also happy to welcome Sai Swetha and Souradeep, the newest members of the Thulir family.
Celebrations in Thulir
September 5th was a special day in Thulir. We celebrated 3 events in one day.
We feel it is imperative that children know, understand and respect all religions and not just their own. We invited Nouman from Porgai to talk to us about Milad-un-Nabi as well as Islam more broadly in the morning assembly. The children asked many questions, and through Nouman’ s answers all of us learnt a lot about Islam, the Prophet Mohammad, the Arabic language and script and the lunar calendar among other topics. It was a very informative session.
Friday was also Onam and the day of pu kolams or floral patterns in our neighboring state, Kerala. Observing, foraging and collecting flowers and proceeding to make creative designs with them is such a beautiful activity! At Thulir, adults as well as children love engaging in this, and it always unleashes their full creativity. Each class created their own colourful and original designs.
Teachers’ Day – In the afternoon, the 10 year old students told the teachers that they would teach the younger classes and the teachers could take a break! And they did! It was heartening to see how much of Thulir’ s pedagogical values have been imbibed by our students and how encouraging and empathetic they were when some student struggled, as well as how they combined practical activities with theoretical ones. The teachers were all equally delighted and proud!
Your contributions have been vital in propelling our work forward and we are deeply grateful for your unwavering commitment.
This year we have decided to send out three shorter newsletters instead of two long ones as some of you have advised us to do saying they will be easier to download and browse! So here we are in April, earlier than usual! Do give us your feedback.
—- The Many Hands at Work on the Library
Before the construction of the library , a group of friends from Runner’s High ran from Bangalore to Sittilingi in November 2022, in order to help raise funds for it! They spearheaded this effort and inspired us! Throughout the construction period, friends from Ein Zehntel Stiftung have been holding markets and exhibitions to raise additional funds. This was followed this year by yet another group of young friends from Yevvi coming forward to help us finish the construction! The library is truly a team effort and a testament to the large community of friends Thulir has, all of whom have participated in their own way in seeing it built! It was really inspiring to meet with and see the efforts of all these groups. It was heartening to make contact with new groups of supporters like Team Yevvi. To see all of them, at such a young age, being socially conscious and responsible, working to help the socially marginalised and making a difference in society gave one tremendous hope for the future. Please check out this podcast on Thulir made by the Yevvi team https://youtu.be/zjWstdlUppo?si=nXNVTGBSHdHCWTPb
—- Celebrating Christmas, Pongal and Ramadan
At Thulir, we have always believed in teaching the children to understand, respect and value all religions and faiths. So this year, we decided to celebrate Christmas, Pongal and Ramadan with equal attention and joy!
Thulir’s Christmas was a hands-on one. The students and teachers made all the decorations and a nativity crib themselves, out of natural materials and paper. The story of Christmas was told, Christmas carols were sung and tasty cake, baked at the Sittilingi bakery, was relished!
During Pongal, as always, adults and children drew Kolams all over the school and danced the traditional Kummi dance to Vellachi Ammal’ s rendering. Tasty Pongal was cooked on a fire outside and offered to Nature and the sun!
Mohammed Noman and Shaba Fatima, now part of the Sittilingi team, were special guests for the Ramadan celebrations. After relishing a hearty lunch of rice and chicken, everyone enjoyed listening to them telling us stories from the Islamic tradition. They also showed us pictures of Mecca, the Quran and various images of Islamic architecture,with their amazing geometrical patterns! Before this, in the morning we also thought it important to spend a few moments to think about Muslim communities worldwide who are unable to celebrate due to war and violence! We hope that when our children grow up respecting and valuing everyone and their beliefs there will be more peace in the world!
One-day Educational workshops at Thulir
“I was transported back to my childhood!”, “If I had been taught like this when I was in school I would have advanced tremendously in my academics!”, “I understood this math concept only today!” This was some of the feedback we received on a one day workshop conducted in Thulir for 20 odd staff members from the tribal hospital, Porgai, SOFA and Vanavil. This workshop was the third conducted this year as an effort by the Thulir team to expose the other teams to better understand and appreciate the practical, contextual, and child friendly pedagogical approach at Thulir. In each of the workshops, the teachers took turns to engage the participants in various activities – nature walks, Math, Language, Science, and Social Studies activities. This was followed by an afternoon show where each group of students did a performance of their choice, from telling stories to acting out play, singing and dancing to reading out and explaining a newspaper article. On the whole, it was a very fulfilling and enjoyable experience for all
The Sittilingi Run – a simplified version
We had to postpone the Annual Sittilingi Run this year at almost the last minute due to some communal tensions in one of the villages in the valley. But all the participants from outside had already made travel arrangements to come. on February 2nd. Around 85 people, mostly friends from outside and the Thulir team from Sittilingi, ran 10k and 5 K. We all had breakfast and lunch together.
A group of tribal teachers from Dew drop Academy School, Meghalaya visited. We had truly wonderful exchanges with each other!
Cultural Evening at Thulir
The cultural season towards the end of the year is something everyone looks forward to. There is a lot more music, a lot more dance and definitely a lot of drama!
After tirelessly practicing for days, the children showcased all they had learned to parents and friends of Thulir in a series of performances on the evening of March 29th. Each group sang songs, danced to a variety of music, performed dramas with tongue-twisting dialogues and performed long mimes in complete silence. Swetha made beautiful props out of paper for the plays. Varsha and Kavi Mitra, who passed out of Thulir five years ago, came back after their board exam to teach children to beat and dance to the rhythm of Parai. Gnanisha, also an ex-student, performed karakattam extremely gracefully. The teachers too were very enthusiastic and put up two performances of their own this year.
For the first time, film songs were also included. Anu started a conversation with the parents about the need to examine the words and meaning relayed by the film songs before we expose the children to them.
We are extremely grateful to Sai Swetha and Meedhu for their time and expertise. They brought out the artist in each child with such gentle care and unmatched prowess. Sai Swetha tirelessly did all the choreography.
Educational trips
Travel is a great way to learn! With this in mind, we ensured that the children and teachers got many opportunities to travel outside the school and learn!
visit to Ananya school, Bengaluru
science museum, Bengaluru
5K run, Bengaluru
visit to Sathanur Dam
Teachers visit Tanjavur
Join the ‘ Friends of Thulir’ network!
We believe that the education of our future generation should be the community’ s responsibility and not the burden of individual parents. Parents of the Sittilingi valley will never be able to support the complete costs of a quality school like this. The supporting community need not be the local geographical community but a wider community of like minded people worldwide! If 300 people contribute Rs.1000 a month which is Rs.12000 a year (or 100 friends contribute Rs.36000 a year), the school can be sustained! Please join the ‘ Friends of Thulir ‘ community and help make a tangible and lasting difference in this community.
Season’s greetings to all of you from Thulir, Sittilingi! Hope this newsletter adds to the cheer, festivity, and goodwill of Christmas and New year.
Film on Thulir
In this short film (Visit the link), Srikrupa Raghunathan and Prashant Chaudary have very beautifully and sensitively captured the spirit and essence of Thulir and all that we do together here. They tell the story of how Thulir grew from an after-school Learning Center to a novel basic technology course to a full fledged school for dalit, lambadi, and tribal children of Sittilingi valley. Thank you Srikrupa and Prashant!
For those of you who haven’t visited us yet, maybe this film would tempt you to visit us. For those who have, we hope this will bring back fond memories. And for all of you we hope this will spur you to become part of the “Friends of Thulir” community and continue to support the learning and blooming of the children of Sittilingi!
Mothers’ workshop
“What do I do with my child in the evening? He doesn’t listen to what I say at all!”
“My daughter watches TV all the time.. doesn’t eat or sleep.”
“Please give more homework for my child”.
“My son doesn’t write ABC at all! What do you teach him at your school?”
“I want my daughter to speak English like you do.”
These are some of the common refrains we hear from the mothers of our students. To address these and to build a rapport between the home and the school we conducted a one day workshop for mothers of the 4 and 5 year olds in September. The day was packed with performances by older children, role plays by teachers to stimulate discussion and reflection, hands-on math, language, sensory and coordination activities, games and discussions. The mothers grew visibly less anxious and more relaxed, confident, and interested and ready to engage in learning with their children in a meaningful and fulfilling manner. For many of them this was a totally new experience and a break from the stifling and chore-filled typical day at home.
Interviewing the Panchayat President
As part of their social studies project, the nine and ten year old students visited the panchayat office and interviewed the Panchayat president, Ms.Madeshwari and the Panchayat clerk, Mr. Manivannan. The Panchayat office staff were amazed and impressed by the very thoughtful and insightful questions the children asked.
At the Bengaluru Marathon
Environmental film festival
The All Living Things environmental film festival curated by Alt-Eff happened in November. Ramkumar from Beyos and Janani came to screen a curated and diverse spectrum of films on climate action, ecology, and resilient communities worldwide.
Marudham Craft week
Children and Teachers participated in the craft week at Marudam School in November. Government Approval- Renewal
The state government recognition certificate has been renewed and extended till May 31st 2027. The District Education officer Ms. Jayakantham visited our school early in November for inspection. Our 9 and 10 year olds and a few teachers were not here as they had gone to Thiruvannamalai to participate in the Marudam craft week that day. The DEO spent 3 to 4 hours in the school looking at all our learning and teaching materials in detail. She observed classes and she praised the way the school is integrated with nature. She was also appreciative of the teaching methods followed and the student-teacher interactions. She has written all this in the positive report above.
Stink-horn Mushroom spotted at the campus.
None of this would have been possible without your unwavering support. Thank you!
Let’s continue empowering dreams and creating hope!
Wishing you all a peaceful year ahead with good health and happy coexistence with all beings on the planet.
The touching note above was penned by Bharathikrishnan, one of Thulir’s very first students. Bharathi is now working as a medical lab technician at Apollo Hospital, Chennai.
20 years of Thulir
We can still remember the moment Thulir was born! A moment filled with anticipation and hope edged with diffidence and tentativeness. But that moment slowly flowed into another and another. With all your support these moments grew into fulfilling and enthusiastic hours, hours into days, days into months, months into years and Thulir is now 20 years old!
Photo credit : Balaji
In that time, Thulir has touched the lives of at least 600 tribal students and their parents in this valley! Some of them are now teachers themselves, others are blossoming as farmers or engineers or lab technicians, electricians, masons, welders, plumbers, mothers, accountants, computer programmers, small entrepreneurs and even a pastor and a priest!. Not everything in this story has been positive: two of them are alcoholics resisting rehab and three have tragically passed away. The primary school has blossomed and our teachers conduct village classes in the Palakuttai and Nammankadu government schools.
Around 75 students in the age group 14-18 attended a full time Basic technology course between 2007 and 2016 . Some of these students have become building artisans and are creating ecologically sensitive buildings both in the valley and outside. Many volunteers from around the world have come here and many are now close friends and still in touch.
None of this would have been possible without all of you.
A huge thank you also to every single one of our friends at Asha for Education and Ein Zehntel Stiftung who have recognized the value and authenticity of our years of ground work and chosen to support its continued growth and blossoming into the future.
Thulir has also been largely funded by individuals who are personally touched and connected to what we are all doing together.
So this is also a moment to again thank so many of you whose individual generosity has kept us going through all these years, and upon whom we still rely.
Alumni get-together- Thulir’ s 20th birthday
A day of celebration, camaraderie, nostalgia, friendship, happiness and hope!
120 people came together to celebrate 20 years of Thulir! They all represented varying ages, occupations and places. The common thread bringing everyone together was that all of them have been learners at Thulir at some point in the last 20 years!. It was special to see Balaji from Coimbatore, Bharathi and Ragul from Chennai, Devaki from Vallimadurai, Theerthammal from Beemarapatti and Nikhil from Mumbai travel all the way in order to attend this.
Games were played, tasty food was relished, conversations were engaged in and old memories were recalled and shared! It was very moving to hear the alumni recount what they had learnt at Thulir or vividly describe experiences they had had here and how special Thulir was to them.
So many said, ” I would spend the whole day at school waiting for the evening to come, so that I could come to Thulir!” Many others said, ” I touched a story book/computer/art materials/millet farming/electric circuit for the first time at Thulir!” Yet others said, ” I would look forward to the millet snack there very much!”
It gave us hope to see how much this group of alumni treasured the essence and spirit of Thulir. They will surely support and take it forward in future!
Cultural Evening
For a whole week the school was filled with resounding beats of the Parai (drum) by the Kalai Nila Kali Kuzhu who turned the Cultural Evening into a festivity of music and movement much enjoyed by children and adults alike!
Folk dances like oyilaatam, saataikuchu aatam, tappaatam, kaliyal, karagam and plays in English and Tamil were performed by children while the adults watched in awe. Children who would not so much as move their feet on day one were euphoric by the end of the week.
The event was organized to showcase the children’s performances on one hand, but more importantly it was the coming together of communities which on a regular day have no chance to cross each other’s paths.
Participation in turtle walk
Could you imagine taking a group of 10 year old children to walk a total of 7 km on the beach for a whole night without sleeping, while remaining quite and only observing?
Can’t imagine? Appalled by the idea? Nervous??!
So were we initially! But the children and teachers were very eager to participate in the turtle walk organized by the Student Sea Turtle Conservation Network, Chennai, and so we signed up for it.
The children were quite amazing! They were completely engaged, alert and interested. We were very lucky and found two turtle nests! We watched the eggs being carefully unearthed and relocated to a safe hatchery. As dawn broke over the sea, we were in for a real treat! We got to see new hatchlings being released and watched as they took their first tentative steps towards the sea at 5:30 in the morning.
A train ride to Chennai and visits to the snake park and library and shows in the Birla planetarium were all also part of the trip. Everyone enjoyed and cherished every moment of it!
Election at Thulir
The nation-wide buzz surrounding the Lok Sabha Elections didn’t spare Thulir. There were a lot of questions from the children about how elections work, who would be the next prime-minister, how voting for candidates in Sittilingi would lead to a Prime Minister being chosen in Delhi and so on.
We thought this was a good opportunity to teach them all this through a mock-election! The classes were divided into three constituencies and four students were chosen in each constituency to be representatives for four different parties. There was one student who contested as an independent candidate as well!
The party members worked hard preparing posters and election promises. Although there was a sudden competitiveness there was also camaraderie. They were aware that they were competing against each other, but in times of need friendship prevailed.
The fairness of the election process in Thulir would have put the Election Commission to shame! During counting the little citizens cheered for every vote counted with no regard to which was their favourite party. The results were a hung parliament, with no majority, and so a coalition government was formed. The sentimental candidate who was devastated after having lost his seat was pacified by being made the Prime Minister on the condition that he has to win a by-election for his seat within six months!
Library construction
The new library-cum- resource center is slowly taking shape!
It is being built by Jayabal, Dhanabal, Lakshmanan, Mohan, Kumar – all artisans trained at Thulir are building it ! Mallesh.N, Krishna and Ravi are co-ordinating the construction.
Anadayana Run
It is always a joy to participate in Anandayana- an event that inspires positive change and bringing together children from varied disadvantaged backgrounds, skills and places. This year it was special as we were able to interact with Balaji, Neha and other friends from Asha Bangalore as well!
Wall painting
Pongal celebrations
Sports day
Sittilingi Run
We are supremely grateful that we have all of you ‘ friends of Thulir’ .. this community to whom we can always come back to, for guidance, positivity, immense goodwill and strength. Thank you.
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!
Participated in the Wipro Bangalore Marathon too.
“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
Teachers and students participated in the Marudam craft week.
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.
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.
Field and village classes continue
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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.
Greetings from Thulir! Hope all is well with you. We are happy to share what’s been happening at Thulir with you.
Pongal Celebration
The harvest festival, Pongal, is the most important festival celebrated in Sittilingi and Thulir. The celebrations this year were doubly special because the corona virus had put a stop to these celebrations the last two years!
Teachers and students worked hard for three whole days cleaning the entire school, applying cowdung on all the mud floors, painting the walls, making beautiful colourful kolams (designs/ rangoli) on all the available floors, dancing the traditional Kummi dances and cooking tasty pongal outside, and finally eating and savouring it together!
Village elder, Vellachi Ammal, was invited to teach traditional pongal songs!
Storytelling Workshop
All of us love stories and have nostalgic memories of stories told to us by grandparents or parents or aunts and uncles.These stories, while nurturing strong emotional bonds, not only entertained us but also educated us about life, relationships, and the art of living!
With the advancement of technology and social media storytelling has almost disappeared everywhere.
Kumar Shaw, an expert story-teller, has been cycling through the country on a nationwide mission to revive this and create awareness about the significance of storytelling. He visited Thulir in January and regaled the children with witty, timely, and fascinating tales. Under his skillful anchoring the children created their own story as a group about a dinosaur becoming the king of the jungle and illustrated it! It was fascinating to watch the story weave itself.
Senjikottai Trip
Completely unfazed by the blazing hot April sun, our 9, 10, and 11 year olds raced up to the top of the steep Rajakottai hill!
The teachers and students went on a day trip to the historic site of Senjikottai (mispronounced as Gingee fort by the English), which is around 115 km from Thulir. Dubbed “The Troy of the East” by the British, and deemed to be one of the strongest forts in the country, Senji has been owned by a parade of powers in its 900 year history — from the Cholas and Vijayanagar to Bijapur and Telugu Nayakas. It has seen Marathas scale its rock faces with the use of monitor lizards, according to legend; a Rajasthani ruler, Tej Singh, who became a Tamil folk hero known as Desing Raja; and an eight year clash between Marathas and Mughals which was the longest siege in Mughal history. And now it was the turn of our Thulir heroes and heroines to climb up the steep, narrow and winding steps to the twin hilltop forts, named the Rajakottai and Ranikottai by locals. The same steps that Mughals, Marathas, Europeans, and so many other armies had climbed before!
On the way back the group stopped at the Sathanur dam across the Thenpennai river and played in the park there. The children were also mesmerised by the crocodiles at the crocodile farm there!
Sports Days
How does one ensure that the excitement of a sporting event is not compromised while NOT giving too much importance to excessive competitiveness and winning and losing? That participation is given more importance than winning or losing?
This has been our constant focus at every Thulir sports event. This year, the children enjoyed two whole days of sports and games in February. This time we also invited students from the government school in Palakuttai and the Thulir Alumni to participate. Anjana from Asha Bangalore visited us with family and friends.
We included two co-operative games where one wins only if the whole team wins, or the entire team loses. For instance at Musical chairs as the number of chairs reduce after each round the participants have to still make sure that everyone gets to sit. Even if one person doesn’t manage to sit the whole group loses. We were amazed at how more than 15 children managed to sit on one chair!
“Teachers for Change” Workshops
As teachers, is it enough if we merely teach the 3 Rs? Is it adequate to just teach Math, Language, Sciences? Are we aware of the socio-political-economic structures and inequalities around us? Are we aware of what kind of society our forefathers, who created our constitution, dreamed of? Do we need to make our students aware of all this? Do we have a role in helping our students grow to become tolerant, caring, and socially responsible citizens and create a free, just, equitable society in the future?
With the help of the Barefoot Academy we organised four 3 day workshops for teachers from Marudam, Payir, Vanavil, and Thulir this year to gain an understanding of all this. We express our gratitude to BA for pioneering this initiative.
Government Approval Process
After 3 long years and countless trips to Dharmapuri and drawing and re-drawing our building plans to suit varying formats, we finally got the DTCP (Department of Town and Country Planning) approval for our school buildings. The process was delayed by the COVID lockdowns and the Tamil Nadu government changing the entire Application procedure halfway through these years.
Since we now have all the required certificates we re-applied to the Education Department for approval. The District Education Officer inspected our school on 26th April and gave his approval and forwarded our files to Chennai. We are awaiting our final approval from the capital.
Thanks to Ramkumar for patiently following this process through all these years!
The Sittilingi Run
A lively and meaningful event on February 5th which brought all of us — the Runner’s High group, Thulir, THI, SOFA, Porgai, and the Panchayat teams — together in a celebration of community, team spirit, and physical fitness!
Dr. Christy and Dr. Raja Durai set the tone for the day with an initial lively warm-up session! A total of 428 runners, both from Sittilingi as well as friends from Chennai, Marudam School, Thiruvannamalai, and Ananya School, Bangalore ran the 2k, 5k, or 10k races.
As the sun was sleepily trying to peep out from behind the blue mist-clad hills, the runners ran between the sugarcane, turmeric, and rice fields on both sides of the roads breathing in the misty, cool, clean air.
The age of the runners ranged from 4 to 70, and their attire varied from shorts to tracksuits to sarees! There were no prizes or mementoes. The joy of being and running together was prize enough! Ravi has captured the beauty of this event at >> Read more
and you can also visit Balaji’s site to read more about the event.>> Read more
Visitors and Volunteers
Mhaiiri McInnes from Austria visited in January. She demonstrated the Feldenkrais method of Awareness through Movement to children and teachers.
Seetha, Uma, Vinita, and Vinodhini — indigenous women from Gudalur doing BSc Social Work did their one month field placement here at Thulir. They taught their traditional music and dances to our students.
Vinod from Marudam School came often to conduct nature walks, birdwatching walks, and ecology classes.
Sakthi from MIDS, along with her daughter Samrutha, a class 10 student visited in March. Samrutha has written about her experience here:>> Read more
A Dying Art!
One of the most ecological, sustainable and thermally comfortable roofs is a thatch roof, made of thick bundles of grass. Thatching a roof is a highly skilled craft! Moreover, it is group work, that needs a full team of skilled artisans to do, and invariably involves everybody in the surrounding community in one way or another! We saw this for the first time 19 years ago when the roofs of Anu and Krishna’s house and the old Thulir buildings were thatched by a group of highly skilled thatch-layers from Alangayam and many of the locals who came to help them then were people who have stayed with us all these years since!
But in the years since, thatch roofs have become rarer and rarer, and the artisans who thatch these have almost vanished.
However, there is a silver lining to this, as recently Anu and Krishna’s 19 year old roof was re-thatched. Though we were not expecting to be able to work with as skilled artisans, through a stroke of luck we ended up finding a group of professional thatch-layers from the very same village of Alangayam! Work started at 7 am every morning and went on till 5 pm every day. Many adults and children from the community pitched in to help and we all worked and ate together! There was much laughter, conversation, team work and camaraderie! The tension, stress and the overpowering noise of heavy machinery that are pervasive when a concrete roof is built were completely absent here. It was an unforgettable experience!
Thank you!
Heartfelt thanks to all of you for recognising the value and authenticity of our work, and choosing to support Thulir’s continued growth and blossoming.
“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.”
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.
It was a novelty to have children back in school full time from February!
Looking back over the last two difficult and unusual years, one realises that good teamwork, community spirit and all your support have unleashed our creativity and resilience to the maximum. In fact, many new projects have sprouted in Thulir!
Training of government appointed Illam Thedi Kalvi volunteers.
“I never knew multiplication could be taught so interestingly!” “Why was I never taught Maths this way?” “Can we come every day to your school?” These were the enthusiastic refrains we heard during the one-day training workshops we conducted every fortnight for the government appointed village volunteer teachers under the Illam Thedi Kalvi (education at your doorstep) scheme.
The Illam Thedi Kalvi scheme has been launched by the Tamil Nadu Government to help children catch up after the gap in their schooling due to the lockdowns. Under this scheme they have appointed a few volunteers (mostly recent graduates) in every village to provide supplementary and bridge classes to a specified number of children from their neighbourhood every evening. Classes are conducted in front of their houses in the village. Unfortunately, most of these volunteers have no prior teaching experience and found it hard to teach a multi level, multi graded group of students!
We talked to the Chief Educational Officer of Dharmapuri and offered to train these volunteers at Thulir so that they would be better equipped to give the children in our villages their required educational support. The response, both from the volunteers themselves and the headmasters of the local government schools, has been very positive. Volunteers from Palakuttai, Velanur, Nammankadu and Sittilingi villages now attend a full day workshop at Thulir school once in two weeks. We have also started a WhatsApp group for these teachers so that materials could be shared easily and continuous guidance could be provided.
Interactions with government schools in the valley
Our discussions on how to continue and maintain our interactions with government school children during the lockdown spurred us on to re-establish our contacts with the government schools in the valley. One cannot remain an island when one is in a community like this.
We visited all the government schools in the valley, interacted with their teachers and headmasters and gave them some library materials. This is the first step towards further programmes in these schools in the future.
Classes in government schools
To begin with, we selected two government schools, in Nammankadu and Palakuttai, for regular interactions. Two teachers from Thulir go one afternoon a week to each of these schools and conduct classes for the children there.
Each of these schools have around 50 children from class 1 to 5 with one teacher and a headmistress. Our sessions include songs, stories, maths and science activities.
Daily Evening class in Palakuttai village
Suresh has started taking classes every day in his village, Palakuttai. The number of children attending varies, but there is a constant group of 12 to 15 children coming every evening. The confidence that these children have gained when it comes to learning is visible and palpable, when compared to the other children in the govt school there. Suresh also brought his students to Thulir school for a day.
Working with children with developmental delays
Ambika has rejoined Thulir to work with children with developmental delays. She attended two week-long training programmes at the Developmental Paediatrics Department in CMC Vellore. The doctors in the department were amazed at Ambika’s training in Thulir and the way she was handling the children’ s activities. They have expressed an interest in training her more and in continuing interactions with Thulir in the future. She has interacted with and taught two such children in school this year apart from her own daughter. Lakshmi, an Educational Psychology student from Vellore, acts as an interpreter between the doctors and Ambika and helps the doctors remotely guide Ambika in her work.
Scholarship Fund
Many students from Sittilingi are now going outside the valley to pursue higher studies. Higher education fees are now quite steep and far beyond the abilities of their families. So we have started a scholarship fund to provide some initial assistance to a few deserving students each year. We helped two students from Sittilingi to pursue BSc nursing and one student to pursue Engineering in NIT, Trichy.
Folk song and dance workshop
Multiplication tables sung enthusiastically accompanied by the rhythm of the parai (traditional drums) reverberated around the school. Thiru. Manimaran conducted a week-long folk song and dance workshop in Thulir. Observing that children learnt very well through songs and chants, we requested him to set the multiplication tables to music. He did so, and the result was a huge success!
Anandayana Run
Attending a public gathering after 2 years of restraints seemed a novel and very welcome experience! Suresh and Jyoti took a group of 18 children from Palakuttai and Sittilingi to run 5km in the inclusive event, Anandayana, organised by Runner’s High. Getting to meet and mingle with differently able and differently privileged children from various schools was a great learning experience.
Bringing children to school
The private mini-bus which operates in our valley, and which many children used to come to school, stopped operating in March and April. But parents took the initiative to share bikes or get help and somehow brought children to school in spite of physical and financial hardships.
Glimpses from the campus
Anil and Rekha and students from Sahodaya school, Bihar visited the school in January.
Natural Builders!
Building with mud seems to be a very natural and enjoyable instinct!
Sports day in the blazing sun!
Active participation from the teachers.
The school walls have come alive with birds, animals and trees! Painting with home-made natural colours under the guidance of Swetha and Rajammal!
We have been able to bounce back with renewed vigour only because of the resilience among children, teachers and others from the community. And because of your continued support.
Let’s keep this spirit of giving and sharing alive and healthy!
visit to Ananya school, Bengaluru
