Education for Freedom
– 3rd update

While the Danish year is ending a new economic year has just started in BASE Bardiya. This update covers a period of extensive planning and initiation of a lot of activities disturbed by the celebration of the two largest annual festivals Dashein and Tihar.

Use of money requires planning, use of a lot of money, requires a lot of planning. BASE Bardiya has realised this after deciding the coming year’s activities. Why is this so important, when we ought to concentrate on children’s education? With the large amount of money collected by OD and a relatively short period in which to spend it, planning is absolutely vital. We needed an annual plan for BASE Bardiya, for each section and for each of the thematic working groups, all with detailed budgets. Transparency and correct spending of the money are vital for BASE as well as for MS and OD. Besides the planning also the human resources are in place at the office in Gulariya with the arrival of an Information and Documentation (I&D) coordinator as well as a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) coordinator.

Capacity building - that is information, training and other forms of activities that strengthen people and enable them to meet certain challenges - has high priority right now. The M&E section and group have received training in BASE’s own grassroots monitoring tools and are to train people in communities in how to control and monitor the project, each school’s expenditures, whether the SMC takes the right decisions and actually implement them etc. although they do not have a formal role in the Education for Freedom project.

In cooperation with an artist we are currently designing two large billboards to be placed in Bhansgathi and Bhurigau respectively - two towns on the high way through which far most of our members and target group pass on a regular basis. The boards are to be placed near the bus stand and in a simple manner inform about all children’s right to education and people’s plight to demand it free and of good quality. There will also be a reference to the work of Education for Freedom and a contact to BASE.

Our forum theatre group has recently rehearsed a play on the educational problems in our project area integrated with information on the rights according to the official ‘Education for All’ policy. After rehearsing the play was showed in Bechaipur where they have a current problem about paying fees (education must be free) and furthermore not knowing how the money is spend. This form of theatre engages people in discussions about how to solve the problems and in the coming months the theatre group will perform and initiate such discussions in all project VDCs.

The Education section in BASE Bardiya has been immensely active recently and done a lot of work in the field regarding informal as well as formal education. In the 6 project VDCs several SMCs have attended a two days training on their roles and responsibilities according to the government rules. It was chocking to realise that only very few schools actually knew about the new Education for All policy. Without clearly knowing their plights and rights we cannot expect them to perform satisfactory and to guarantee quality in the schools.

Our Education team (BASE members with special expertise/interest in the subject) and the M&E section have recently participated in a one-week of ‘whole school’ training led by a representative from the education authorities. The purpose of focussing on ‘the whole school’ is to ensure that if new methods and trainings are introduced it encompasses all teachers, and not as hitherto only a few. In this way teachers can support, encourage and monitor each other. All involved parties i.e. parents, school management committee (SMC), parent-teacher association (PTA) will be orientated on this principle in order for them to encourage and support it. For long it has been customary to only train one teacher from each school, who was then responsible for training others at his/her own school. However, one person cannot return from a training and be expected to transform the pedagogical principles and teaching methods.

The M&E team (constituted as the above mentioned) is currently establishing the so-called Paharedar in the areas adjoining the 16 specifically supported schools. The Paharedars are supposed to monitor the work of the school and the SMC. After the establishment they will get an orientation on the ‘whole school’ approach.

BASE has embarked on a 15 days training on child centred learning for those people who will later be teaching the first 30 flexible classes that are to start this winter in ex-kamaiya settlements in the project VDCs. The 12 selected people are all ex-kamaiyas who will teach in their own communities. This is a good example of the work in the Education for Freedom project. The flexible classes are running for three years after which the children can be enrolled and continue their education in 4th grade in a normal school. The classes are designed for children who are too old for primary school. It is especially beneficiary to invest in flexible classes in the temporary ex-kamaiya camps, as the government will not provide educational support there. Education for Freedom then pays the training and three years wage for a local adult, after which this person has new skills and the ex-kamaiyas hopefully have got their own land on which to construct a school and thus let the children continue in a formal school. This is a sustainable investment as it builds on government principles and standards, wherefore the children can be integrated into formal education afterwards.

After a lot of ground work, surveys, school profiles, discussions at the schools and a thorough debate about ranking of the candidates, BASE Bardiya (Education team, Education section, District coordinator and ex-kamaiya representatives) has now selected those schools that are suggested for model education centres. The final decision also depends on the assessment and motivation of those schools, wherefore the names are not yet public. The most important criteria for selection was in the order mentioned: the number of ex-kamaiya students; the distance from the school to ex-kamaiya settlements; the infrastructure of the school; the number of teachers and finally the number of dalit and landless children.

A construction fieldworker - Sanghari - is at present visiting all schools in the project area in order to assess the needs for infrastructure improvements and renewing. Thereafter BASE will make the final decision about construction support and initiate the construction work by drawing on manpower of the target group. People get trained for the purpose e.g. in masonry or plumbing, skills which can also help them generate extra income after the school construction. A POP -poorest of the poor - manual will now be developed jointly by the different sections and the target group in order to identify needs and suitable resources.

The education section has a meeting with the DEO this week with the purpose of discussing the needs for developing supplementary material - for example for mother tongue education - in the primary school.

MS-Nepal had, in cooperation with BASE Bardiya, invited for a two-day education seminar in the end of November. The participants were from the governmental education offices, centrally as well as from Bardiya and its neighbouring districts and besides MS, whose secretary general from Denmark Lars Udsholt also participated, different INGOs were represented. BASE naturally participated with committee members as well as staff and also a few ex-kamaiyas (from the Kamasu organisation) and several other MS partners working with education took part in the seminar. The seminar aimed to define the most acute areas in which the different actors can make a joint effort or use each other’s expertise. The seminar will followed by another next year for the same participants. Several participants expressed how the participation and constructive input by the officials was a real improvement - usually they are quiet or defend themselves. For all involved it was healthy to actually having to, and wanting to listen to each other for two days.

OD visit - not from Denmark but from India! Sonam Wangchuk from SECMOL, the Ladakhi organisation that won OD in 1996 visited BASE Bardiya I connection with the education seminar. Sonam’s presentation was very encouraging and clearly created enthusiasm. It was equally useful for government representatives, NGO enthusiasts, education journalists and ex-kamaiyas to realise how cooperation and the will of everyone to contribute in fact can change the education system for the better. After the seminar Sonam visited an ex-kamaiya camp and he made four presentations and discussions for our committee/women group/kamasu members, for all the BASE Bardiya staff (incl. the education team) as well as for members of SMCs, PTAs and officers from the DEO office in Gulariya.

Sonam made the presentations in Hindi, which most people in Terai understands well - this made him quite familiar and there were lively discussion both under and after the presentations - ‘we have to do the same!’ many said. We were inspired and are already materialising some of his ideas in a Tharu/Terai context. For example SECMOL used a vicious and a virtuous circle to illustrate the importance of people’s priorities and will in changing a system - people understood them immediately and we will soon make our own locally relevant circles as a tool for awareness raising in communities. We hope to learn a lot from SECMOLs experiences during the coming years. There is no doubt that it is beneficial to exchange ideas with other Southern organisations with OD experiences. Out of the same reason we have summarised and translated the evaluation done by OD itself in 2002 ‘Operation World’s work’.

BASE continues to support the ex-kamaiyas own organisation Kamasu (there is also another unregistered organisation that BASE now also seek to support) by linking them to different donors and programmes and by advising them on making proposals, budgets and other formalities required in order to get support - no matter the goodness of the cause. The Kamasu people being very active in their organisational work also implies that they spend a lot of time at the BASE office, thereby making involvement in the project and overall coordination easy. We have just initiated cooperation on the issue of child labourers among the former kamaiyas, which will imply awareness on child rights as well as educational alternatives through child clubs and out-of-school teaching. First of all, however, they will identify the magnitude and locations of the problem.

Right now the authorities are making another round of checking the validity of all those ex-kamaiyas (around 7000) who applied for registration and land last. The reason is that the number of ex-kamaiyas seems to grow rather than fall insinuating that a lot of people cheat and seek to get land by claiming they are ex-kamaiyas. For all those who were real kamaiyas and for whom 3½ years have now passed without rehabilitation, such survey means yet another delay. Besides, even among those ex-kamaiyas with identity cards, there is still a vast amount of people who have not received any land or support. The Thumb print campaign therefore still is really relevant.

It is immensely difficult to find a suitable time for delivering OD’s many collected thumbprints. The conflict in Nepal has been hastily escalating and the media thus have not given much space to other issues than all the bloody incidences. However, around the Tharu New Year, Maghi, they usually give quite a lot of space for Tharu history, Tharu culture, ex-kamaiyas etc. This occasion therefore would allow our news to come through and some attention to be given to the issue as Danish students’ advocacy for ex-kamaiyas, would be a new input. We will make a press conference with theatre, ex-kamaiya speeches and a thumb print happening (we collect thumb prints from ex-kamaiyas themselves in all five districts).