One Volunteer's Trip to Gulabgarh by Alessandro Bordoli

I spent one week in Gulabgarh, and although my time was limited, the place had an immense impact on me. The trip there from the nearest airports, Srinagar and Jammu, is long and follows treacherous roads along awesome heights through the mountains. As you travel there, you really get the sense that you are traveling somewhere remote, which for me was a new experience. When I finally arrived in Gulabgarh, exhausted, I was amazed by the innate beauty of the location. The village is situated on the banks of a river and surrounded by the towering and snow-covered peaks. It is firmly nestled between the river and the mountains, almost as if delicately dropped in the spot, and the feeling I got as I walked through for the first time was of the overwhelming sense of being far far away from the world I have always known. The silence and the beauty of the spot fill all the senses and produce a feeling of having arrived to one of the most beautiful places on Earth, an area still largely untouched by the forces of man.

In the week that I spent in Gulabgarh, I stayed with a family from the village, and I soon started to get a sense of how life in the village is. Electricity is not always reliable, nor is running water. Phone service is hard to get and the internet remains out of reach. Despite these obstacles, however, the people have an incredible culture and sense of family and friendship with their neighbors. If the electricity is not working, they build solar panels or use candles and lamps.  All people are bound together by their experience and by a great pride in the beauty of their home.

The people were all so kind to me as well. They welcomed me into their homes and bars and treated me as they would family. They went out of their way to make me feel at home, and constantly probed to see if I was enjoying my experience. It was a truly beautiful thing, to live in a place so far from my family, friends, and
the world that I grew up in, and yet to feel at peace there. I have many fond memories from my time in Gulabgarh that I will take with me forever: playing soccer on the cricket field in the pouring rain with other kids from the village, writing in my journal by the candlelight about my experiences there, the warm smiles of the people I met in my short time there.

The vibrancy of the culture there will always stick out in my mind, as well as the happiness of the people and the stunning beauty of the location. These are the things I think of when I think about Gulabgarh (which I often do). When you go, the place just sticks in your mind and heart. I was there only a week, and yet I miss it in a way. It felt strange to leave a place after such a short time and feel such an attachment, but such was my experience there that it has created a longing to return someday, a longing that I hope I can answer by going back next summer.

Tibetan scarves and their meaning

Perhaps our readers have been wondering why the sponsors of our literacy project are wearing those beautiful yellow scarves in the photos. If you remember, most of our current WLP students belong to the Buddhist community of Gulabgarh and these silk scarves are an important part of their tradition. We'd like to explain why.

Bestowing a Khata or silk scarf, is an ancient Tibetan buddhist tradition that is still honored today. The Khata is offered as an auspicious symbol of good intentions during the welcoming and initiation of new relationships. In fact, they are presented as blessings to all types of new relationships and during events such as religious and political ceremonies, marriages, births, funeral ceremonies, and on any occasion that a person considers worthy of its bestowal. We chose to present our supporters with a Khata as a sign of our deepest respect and gratitude.

The offering of a Khata often marks a powerful change and transition in a person’s life. It is an honor for a person to be presented with this genuine act of blessing and good will.

Khatas are bestowed on images of Buddha, spiritual teachers and objects of devotion as a sign of respect and gratitude and so it is very common for people to hang white silk scarves over altars and around the sacred objects that are placed there. They are also considered to bring good luck. In addition, you will often see them flown and put on prayer flags. It's a wonderful feeling when you receive a Khata as you reach the top of a high mountain pass!

The traditional scarves are usually made of white or ivory colored silk with symbols or mantras either inscribed or woven into the fabric. Cotton as well as other fabrics are used to create Khatas and they are available in a variety of colors including blue, red, green and yellow or gold.

On a curious note, while President Obama was being sworn in as President of the United States, he was carrying a white silk scarf, or khata, blessed by H.H. the Dalai Lama, in his pocket.

Sources:
http://EzineArticles.com/3167725
http://www.tibetanprayerflag.com/products.php?cat=5 

World Press Freedom Day

Today, May 3rd, is World Press Freedom Day. To mark this day, the WLP would like to share the following thought with its readers: "...media freedom plays a crucial role in the transformation of society by reshaping its political, economic and social aspects."

As members of a project that strives to achieve women's literacy in a country beset by illiteracy, we cannot afford to ignore the role of media literacy.  

What, you may ask is media literacy, also referred to as information literacy? According to the source cited below, "Being media literate is being able to think critically and to evaluate and analyze news and information; it is knowing how to access media from a variety of sources; and, it is being capable of conveying information through different media. It is the foundation of communications in a media driven society." Therefore, "media awareness is just as important for the students of today as understanding history and mathematics."

 Read more at Suite101: Resources for Teaching Media Literacy: Teacher Resources for Bringing Media Awareness into the Classroom | Suite101.com http://brennacoleman.suite101.com/resources-for-teaching-media-literacy-a185068#ixzz1toW6h3GW

The women of Gulabgarh--our students--must strive towards literacy and numeracy, but this is only the first step.  Once these women are literate, they must be prepared to continue learning, to climb other equally important steps toward their own empowerment and one of them is to become media literate.

 

A new portrait, another note of thanks

Today we would like to introduce you to Isabel, another of our highly esteemed sponsors. Isabel is a hard-working woman from Galicia, Spain, who believes in helping the illiterate women of Gulabgarh--women she has never met, but whom she understands. She feels empathy for and identifies with the women of a village that is so far away from her own because she shares their personal struggle to succeed in life, to help raise a family and to participate in the responsibilities and the decisions of her household. Isabel is a woman we cherish and admire.

A true fighter, Isabel has come up in the world through her own determination and desire to learn and improve. She has acquired the knowhow and wisdom that come from study and experience and used them to improve her education and her life. Because Isabel is aware of the importance of lifelong learning, she continues to harness and broaden this knowledge. Indeed, at present she is preparing state exams to compete for a job in the health services. For us she is an example of courage, fortitude and optimism.

Thank you, Isabel, for believing in the WLP and for helping us to work toward empowering the women of Gulabgarh through the Women's Literacy Project.

Empowering women: IKEA partners with the UNDP

Recently, on the WLP Facebook page, we posted some important news for the rural women of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populated and least developed state: An important partnership between IKEA and the United Nations Development Programme may bring new hope to the women of the region.

For other, more isolated rural areas of India such as Paddar, small-scale efforts like the Women's Literacy Project of Gulabgarh are also working to empower women, so that they become key proactive members of their community.

There is still so much to be done in this emerging economy to help build women's skills, confidence, self-reliance and yes, even their financial literacy, that every initiative counts. Our project has begun preparing the ground toward empowerment by teaching our students the basic skills of reading, writing and numeracy.

Below is the article we published in Technorati with more information regarding this recent development.

Article first published as Empowering Women: IKEA Joins Efforts With UNDP on Technorati.

"Empowered lives. Resilient nations." The heading on the homepage of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) website is inspiring a new effort designed to benefit the rural women of India. With a focus on empowering women, the UNDP has partnered with IKEA Foundation in a project that aims to help build the self-reliance and financial skills of over 50,000 women in 500 villages in three districts of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populated (almost 200 m) but least developed state.
The partnership programme, to which IKEA has pledged €30 million, aims to promote this target group's financial literacy, thereby "strengthening their technical, institutional, managerial and financial skills so that they are able to play a larger role in the social and economic development in the villages."
Including rural women in its undertakings is an apparent attempt to broaden IKEA Foundation’s mission, until now focused mainly on helping the children of developing countries.

Read more: http://technorati.com/business/article/empowering-women-ikea-joins-efforts-with/#ixzz1sljf5s2q