India Adventure Alphabet Soup (IAAS) 101

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ASTEP = Artists Striving to End Poverty

ASTEP is a program dedicated to bringing the arts to disadvantaged children throughout the world. They have programs in India, Africa, New York, and Florida. Each program is a little different, with different partners and different target groups. Whatever the target population, though, ASTEP’s belief is that children can gain important life skills through the arts, and that these life skills are especially valuable for students who were born into an impoverished situation.



TGF = The George Foundation

TGF was started by a man named Abraham George. In short, he spent his early years in India, became very successful in America, and upon a return trip to India realized that he wanted to help the rural people in some way. He has several non-profit projects in the rural areas around Bangalore (often heralded as the “Silicon Valley of India”), many of which are especially geared toward raising the quality of life for members of the Dalit, or “untouchable,” caste. (NOTE: The caste system was actually made illegal after India gained independence, but it is so deeply embedded in the society that it is nearly impossible to break the old social hierarchy.) TGF projects include Shanti Bhavan (see below), rebuilding a hospital, and starting a farm that hires people in order to give them agricultural training.



SB = Shanti Bhavan

SB is a school about 2 ½ hours southeast of Bangalore, in the state of Tamil Nadu. It was built on land that was scorpion-infested and considered unusable. Since it was first started in 1997, wells have been dug, trees have been planted, and buildings have been built. Now, Shanti Bhavan grows most of its own fruit, provides clean drinking water (untainted by the bacteria that tourists are always warned about in India), harnesses solar energy, and has internet. Each year, SB matriculates a new class of 4-yr olds—15 students of each gender—and promises these students an education through the age of 17, at which time they are sent to college. The children are all from the Dalit caste, and would have no way of financing a quality education otherwise.

Education in India is based on monetary power. The elite pay to send their children to the best of schools, which is likely to prepare their students for the world with key things such as technology and English. In rural schools, however, where some children don’t study beyond fifth grade, there is an effort to “maintain the local culture,” which means teaching children in their native tongues. In effect, rural children are cut from any chance of greater success beyond their locality. In many ways, I feel guilty saying that a child in India needs to know English to accomplish higher learning, but that is simply the system that has been established. Therefore, Shanti Bhavan is an English immersion school. The 4-yr olds who come to Shanti Bhavan—who are picked from hundreds of candidates—are taught English and then commence formal lessons in Tamil and Hindi soon after in their education.

But language is not the only rigorous course. In relatively recent years, the first SB class graduated, and those young adults were accepted into top Indian universities, which I feel speaks to the power of SB’s work. Of course, it is hard to tell at age 4 whether or not one is suited for a rigorous academic setting, so there is the occasional student who is dismissed. When this happens, however, TGF helps pay for the student’s tuition elsewhere, so the student still gets a better education than s/he would at the village school.

When SB first started, it was very difficult to convince Dalit families of the sincerity of TGF’s efforts. Rumors were spread. By whom is unclear, but according to Abraham George’s book <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">India Untouched, he infers that they were started by local officials (non-Dalits) who wanted their children to benefit from SB’s education. Dalit families were told that TGF wanted to sell their children, or harvest their organs, or convert them (because George is a Christian name). And now, after years of success and evidence of TGF’s earnestness, families will walk long distances from surrounding states because their little child just might make the cut. That drastic change of popular sentiment leads me to believe that there is something so powerful (yet so underappreciated in cultures such as my own) about being able to <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hope for a better future.

And how fitting, then, that <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">shanti bhavan means “haven of peace.”

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