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.

Our W.L.P. volunteer Alessandro

Today we want to introduce you Alessandro - he will travel in June to Gulabgarh to visit our women from the Women's Literacy Project, get to know them and to work in the school (Himalyan Cultural School of Paddar).

This is very exciting: for us, for Alessandro and of course for our women.

Here's a short interview we had with him:

Name: Alessandro Bordoli

Age: 23

Coming from: Vero Beach, Florida, United States of America

But living at the moment in Spain; the reason:

Teaching English for a year at a School of Languages in Santiago de Compostela.

I finished my Bachelor’s Degree last year in Political Science and Economics at the University of Florida. My eventual plan is to go to law school (perhaps in the area of international law) and then politics, but I decided to take a few years off to see new places and experience new cultures before I settle into school and a career. My family is Italian and we visit our relatives every summer in Italy, so I have traveled extensively throughout Europe, and I have always valued international experience.

Occupation: Language and Culture Assistant – I teach about the culture of the United States as a supplement to the English courses offered at the school

Travel Dates:

Departure Date: June 5^th, 2013

Visit in Gulabgarh: June 8^th to June 15^th (about one week working at the school and helping Tashi)

Tashi picks me up in Srinagar and then takes me to Gulabgarh for one week.

What brought you to the W.L.P.?

I met Mari de la Fuente this year, a fellow teacher here in Spain, and we had talked a lot about volunteer opportunities. I have always dedicated several hours a year to volunteering and always seek out new opportunities. I had a specific interest in volunteering in a long-term program in Africa or Asia for this coming summer, since I have almost a month (June) free. Unfortunately, most volunteer programs ask for sizable program fees, and this is something that is difficult for me to afford as a student with a large amount of debt owed for my university education.

Mari mentioned her past experiences with Tashi and the W.L.P. in India, and I thought it was perfect. I quickly emailed Tashi, and from our first email exchange I could tell this was the opportunity I was looking for. I am thrilled to be able to travel away from the normal tourist destinations and experience the true culture of this region, so far away from my own home.

Why are you interested in this project?

I love to volunteer. My parents came from very poor backgrounds, and have found success through hard work, but they have instilled in us (my 5 brothers and I) an awareness that not all people have been as fortunate as us. They have taught us to always give back, and to help people. This experience in Gulabgarh is especially exciting as it is an international one, and in a place that I have never been.

What are your feelings when you think about your visit?

Excited, as this is an opportunity that I have always sought. However, of course I have the normal feelings of nervousness going to a new place, traveling by myself, and going to a region of the world that most people know mostly as an area of conflict.

Are you interested in volunteering, too?

Just send an email to Tashi – lonpoadventure@yahoo.in

Volunteer work in India: Soumya Pande and Carmen de la Fuente, two sides of the same coin

Thank you, Cristina Negreira, for your wonderful report. Our congratulations on a job well done, which offers new and interesting insight into a major, current issue. We love it!

Cooperación na India: Soumya Pande e Carmen de la Fuente, dúas caras da mesma moeda

For Engracia

Women we admire. Women like Engracia López, one of the WLP’s most respected benefactors. Her story is the story of so many women from around the globe: widowed young, she raised her family through her own effort.

This determined, hardworking woman knows what it takes to survive very hard times. That is why she understands the women of Gulabgarh, their eagerness to become literate and in the process, to prosper and progress, to feel respected and appreciated, to achieve dignity.

Engracia is a wonderful woman who relishes the different roles she has fulfilled throughout her life: mother, worker, friend, neighbor. At the age of 82, she continues to learn and to be an active participant in society.

All of us can learn from women like Engracia. That is why the WLP wishes to share her story with a group of women who are just now beginning to understand the importance of their own education, personal growth and pro-active participation in society.

Thank you, Engracia, for all your help and for trusting in the Women’s Literacy Project of Gulabgarh.

Every woman has a story to tell, each and every one of them has wisdom to share.

A personal note of thanks

We recently met with Fernando Ojea, one of our sponsors in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, to honor him with the traditional khata or hada (silk scarf) in thanks for his generous contribution to our project. We also took the opportunity to keep him up to date on the progress of the WLP Gulabgarh.

Being able to count on people like Fernando shows that the WLP is not only raising awareness of its mission among the population of Gulabgarh, Paddar, but also generating involvement among citizens from outside the community and even the country.

Our supporters understand just how important it is that we pull together to help resolve this global issue which so greatly affects India, one of the world's biggest and most important emerging economies. There can be no development without literacy, no growth without the participation of a country's citizens regardless of their gender, no hope without women's personal development.

For the WLP, our benefactors are not anonymous. It is true that our project is growing and our sponsors are still relatively few, which perhaps makes it easier for us to keep track of those who have contributed to our success stories as well as to fostering the project's continuity. However, even as the number of WLP supporters increases, we aim to acknowledge the effort of each individual in furthering this education initiative, whether that means holding a personal meeting or reaching out to them through our blog and Facebook page.

Thank you Fernando, for your commitment, for believing in the Women's Literacy Project of Gulabgarh and for trusting in our effort.

WLP bylaws

The project members are now working--and just about finished--on the WLP bylaws. As part of its mission, the organization aims to develop activities and design special actions to uplift, encourage and motivate the illiterate women of the most remote and underdeveloped areas of Paddar.

In order to achieve its goals, the WLP will focus on shifting the attitude of the community of Paddar from a heightened awareness of the crucial issue of women’s literacy, towards a commitment to help eradicate female illiteracy and finally towards assuming a more pro-active role in this effort. 

Encouraging lifelong learning among the illiterate female population of Paddar is another key issue that the WLP will address.

In the future, the project will further strive to empower the women of this rural area and reduce gender inequality through digital literacy. The WLP firmly believes that by equipping these women with the skills needed to become digitally literate, the society aspires to help bridge the great digital divide that exists between rural and urban India.

UN spotlights the empowering effect of boosting women's literacy

The video is from 2010. Unfortunately, women's literacy continues to be a crucial, unsolved issue in 2012.

Giving meaning to consumerism

A group of women from Gulabgarh—among them students of the W.L.P., accompanied by the project chairman—have set up a stand to exhibit their handcrafted designs at a 10-day-long craft fair in Jaipur, organized by the Rajasthan Rural Non-Farm Development Agency in association with the Indian Council for Cultural relations (ICCR). Craftsmen and craftswomen from 18 different Indian states signed up to participate in the event held at Jawahar Kala Kendra.

A growing awareness of the value of their traditions, culture and know-how are what led these women to set up a stand at the Jaipur fair. Back in their village, selling their hand knitted socks and other crafts will also help them to complement the family budget.

We hope that the W.L.P. has contributed in some way to the women’s appreciation of what they are able to design and create and in increasing their entrepreneurship and sense of worth.

The Gulabgarh group’s participation in the fair also demonstrates what initiatives such as the “comercio justo” (fair market) and others have shown: that it is possible to reconcile solidarity with consumption.

About Us

Perhaps you've been wondering how this project works, who funds it, how you can help? Well, now you can download our "About Us" newsletter with lots of information about the W.L.P. and about what you can do to help this education initiative to continue.

AboutW.L.P_English

Why focus our efforts on increasing female literacy?

We'd like to share an insightful quote with you:
"When people are able to believe that they can improve their lives through their own efforts, when they realize that some newly created opportunity is denied to them by illiteracy, then they will learn how to read, write and count."

Edgar Owens And Robert Shaw, Development Reconsidered: bridging the gap between government and People

Illiteracy in India

Interesting article published on "The Viewspaper" website.

Image source: The Viewspaper.net

Ever tried writing Devanagari script?

Becoming literate in India means having to study both the English alphabet and Devanagari script. Are you willing to give Devanagari script a try? I am and that's how I discovered this great page: Devanagari Script Tutor.
Of course, in the remote village of Gulabgarh, there is still no access to the Internet, so the students learn to write the old fashioned way, with pencil and paper.

Thank you!

This is a homage to all those who have helped this project become a reality. Thank you for having taken a few moments of your lives to reflect on the lives of a group of women in far off India. Thank you for helping with whatever you were able to contribute to make literacy, dignity and self-esteem a reality for them. Thank you for trying to make their lives--their world--better.
Thank you: Andrea, Engracia, Esperanza, Fernando O., Gonzalo, Isabel, Lola, Sabela, Teresa, staff of the EOI de Santiago and all the other sponsors who prefer to remain anonymous.

Now that the project is a reality, we need to work hard to help it continue to be one.

Maria's story

I spent this past summer in India, volunteering once again in the village of Gulabgarh. During a very pleasant summer evening, a group of men and women gathered together in the home where I was staying.

There had been many weddings this year in the village, and it is customary for people who were not able to attend the celebration, to later organize a family reunion in their own home to honor the parents of the newlyweds.

As a sponsor of the W.L.P., I was asked to address the ladies who had not yet enrolled in the project, to try to encourage them to do so. I decided to tell these women the story of my grandmother--with the help of Tashi Chering, of course!

I was only 5 when I moved with my parents to the U.S., where I grew up, so I remember very little really about what life was like then for women in the small fishing village called Caión, located in the northwestern corner of Spain. I do know, however, that it wasn’t easy. In Galicia—that’s the name of our region—women used to be taught from a very early age how to take care of a home, a family, work the land, everything except how to care for themselves. In fact, they usually completely forgot about themselves, including their own education. If this was still true in the 1960s and 70s, can you imagine what it must have been like for the women of my grandmother’s generation?

My grandmother Maria was born in 1902 in a tiny, isolated village of Galicia, called Lendo. She was incredibly strong and tenacious, an intelligent and adventurous woman whose dream had always been to travel to Buenos Aires. There were no schools back then in these areas, but Maria was determined to educate herself. She learned to read and write on her own so that she could understand the letters that her brothers’ sent to her from Argentina.

So, this self-taught young woman eventually became a sort of local scrivener who would help her neighbors by reading them the letters they received form their loved ones, immigrants in far off Argentina or even the U.S.  During the Spanish civil war, she read and then wrote the replies of the mothers, wives or fiancées of the men who had gone to war.

These readings gathered neighbors and family together in my great-grandparents’ home, where they sometimes shed tears and others laughs about what was recounted in those letters! After the readings my grandmother would write her neighbors’ replies for them. Knowing how to read and write was obviously important for my grandmother, a woman who lived through such tragic events as the Spanish Civil War and the post-war period.

I don’t know whether Maria’s story finally inspired these women, but their success stories certainly motivate me. They encourage me to keep sponsoring this project that I am so enthusiastic about.

In later posts I'd like to tell our readers the inspiring stories that I heard about the women of the WLP.

The future of these women, the future of this emerging economy that is India depends on the development of isolated, rural communities such as this one. Hopefully, this nation will one day proudly claim that its literacy rate has reached one hundred percent.

Study: Women's Literacy in India Falling Further Behind

More than two-thirds of the world's 793 million illiterate adults (two-thirds of them women) are found in only eight countries and India is one of them. If the second most populated nation on Earth is to assume its role as a world economic leader, before becoming digitally or financially literate it must eradicate adult illiteracy.

In today’s information society, education is the driving force behind a strong economic and social development. Unfortunately, according to results of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) conducted by the OECD, the largest emerging markets in the world—the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China)—may be losing educational ground against the so-called FICS (Finland, Ireland, South Korea and Sweden).

Things look greener on the China side of the fence. The Asian giant is said to be “winning the school race”, coming in first in recent PISA studies. India, by contrast, is leading the BRICs in digital exclusion, partly due to adult illiteracy. Most Indians cannot afford or access ICTs and lack the education to use them effectively. While European economies, hard hit by the global crisis, are working to raise their citizens’ financial and digital literacy, this high-growth economy is faced with another challenge.

 Statistics show that illiteracy and poor economies go hand in hand. The state of Bihar—India’s poorest—has the lowest women’s literacy rate in the nation. Values are lower in rural areas than in urban ones. In Jammu & Kashmir, a largely agricultural state, only 41.82% of its women are literate.

Read more: Study: Women's Literacy in India Falling Further Behind (technorati.com)

Women's Literacy Project

Adult illiteracy is not something that should be taken for granted, as alarming statistics reveal:  More than two-thirds of the world's 793 million illiterate adults (two-thirds of them women) are found in only eight countries and India is one of them.

Unfortunately, statistics also show that illiteracy and poor economies go hand in hand. The state of Bihar—India’s poorest—has the lowest women’s literacy rate in the nation. Values are lower in rural areas than in urban ones. In Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), a largely agricultural state, only 41.82% of its women are literate.

Education is the driving force behind strong economic and social development in today’s information society. India must then strive to eradicate adult illiteracy all together, focusing specifically on abolishing female illiteracy.

Why should this be a specific major goal for the Indian authorities? As one of the founding members of the Women’s Literacy Project says, “In India, when you educate a man you are educating an individual, but when you educate a woman, you are educating an entire community.”

The Women’s Literacy Project of Gulabgarh, a village in the district of Paddar, state of J&K was created in November, 2010 by Mr. Tashi Chering, to eradicate female illiteracy in the area.

Thanks to the generous contribution of concerned citizens from abroad, the chairman of the project, Mr. Tashi Chering, is able to rent a room, hire a teacher and purchase school supplies. So far there are about 25 female students taking time off their family and home to learn to read and write in Hindi and English and the number will hopefully increase.

Obviously, part of the effort must be centered on raising the population’s awareness regarding women’s literacy. Literacy gives women self-confidence, thus increasing their participation in decision-making processes. It heightens social consciousness and increases the chances at success of the literate women’s daughters.

A year after the project launch, awareness of the advantages of literacy has evidently grown. What is more, the students’ children are thrilled with their mothers’ desire for self-improvement and their increased self-esteem. Simple, but inspiring success stories speak for themselves:

Before the project began, one of the students was helping out at her husband’s shop. Now that she is able to read, write and do basic arithmetic, she has set up her own small business. Still another woman told the project chairman how delighted she was now that she is able to read signs to guide her through the hospital, when visiting a sick family member.

Endeavors such as the W.L.P. Gulabgarh lend support to government initiatives by introducing personal, focused actions in remote rural districts. Women who learn collectively can begin working collectively towards becoming a vital force in the growing economic and technological power that is India.

Your support can keep this project going. Please help the women of Gulabgarh to improve their role in society and put an end to gender-based discrimination. For more information contact Mr. Tashi Chering at lonpoadv@gmail.com or visit his webpage at http://www.lonpoadventures.com