Journey to Shanti Bhavan

I’m at Shanti Bhavan, finally! It’s been one and a half year since I watched Daughters of Destiny and started to plan the whole thing. Application process and interviews, scheduling my vacations, saving money for the trip, getting a new passport and an Indian visa, taking vaccines, and so on. I arrived at the Bangalore Airport and Ashok, one of the school drivers, was waiting for me and he took me to the school. It was a 1.5 hour trip by car and It was really quiet since I arrived in the middle of the night. When I got ther, Aishwarya took me to my room and I fell asleep cause I was tired.

I slept for only three hours and got up for the breakfast. Most of the students were not at the school due to the winter break, but Thanu and Sharmila took me for a tour to know the campus. It was kind of weird because it looks so familiar, maybe it’s because I watched the documentary twice and read books about It. I was the only volunteer there, the others were going to come on the next day.

I arrived on a Sunday and started to actually work on the next Tuesday. Week days here are very busy! A typical schedule looks like this:

• 6:30 – 7:30 am – Physical Training/Prep
• 7:30 – 8:30 am – Breakfast
• 8:30 – 9:15 am – Period 1
• 9:15 – 10:00 am – Period 2
• 10:00 – 10:45 am – Period 3
• 10:45 – 11:00 am – Tea
• 11:00 – Assembly
• 11:20 – 12:05 am – Period 4
• 12:05 am – 12:50 pm – Period 5
• 12:50 – 1:20 – Lunch
• 1:20 –  2:05pm – Period 6
• 2:05 – 2:50 pm – Period 7
• 2:50 – 3: 35pm – Period 8
• 3:35 – 4:00 pm – Snack
• 4:00 – 5:00 pm – Physical Training/Prep
• 5:00 – 6:00 pm – Bath time
• 6:00 – 7:30 pm – Evening Prep (6th-12th grade)
• 7:30 – 8:00 pm – Dinner
• 8:00 – 8:30 pm – Story Time (PreK-5th grade)

I’m currently teaching Math, Computers, Creative Writing, Spelling and Power Builder. I also have Physical Training and Prep. Physical Training is soccer or basketball, it’s really fun! I enjoy playing with the kids and I wish I was younger to run like they do! Some days I wake up 6 AM when it’s still dark, spend the whole day busy with classes, and only rest after 8:30 PM.

I’m having a great time here at Shanti Bhavan. I’m just missing a laundry machine, hot bath and espresso coffee! The food is great and the staff are very helpful and nice. So far it has been an amazing experience. Namaste.

Donate to Shanti Bhavan!

 

 

The Elephant Chaser’s Daughter is the title of Shilpa’s book, published last year. Shilpa Anthony Raj was born in the village of Thattaguppe, south of Karnataka, and she went to Shanti Bhavan when she was 4 years old. In this book she tells her heart touching story. If wasn’t for her grandmother, maybe Shilpa would not be with us because she saved her from being killed at birth for being a female. Reading the book you will notice that it was like Shilpa had two different lives, one at Shanti Bhavan and the other at home. I’m saying that because of the differences that she faced among both places. In SB she was encouraged to study and get a good job, to be independent. She learnt at SB that is wrong to a man beat his wife, but at home it was quite common to see her father beating her mom. The sexist culture is still present in India as well, more than in Brazil I think, although I have my doubts. At least in Brazil a woman can marry whoever/whenever she wants. This is not always the case in India. In Shilpa’s book she tells about how her family (some of the members) tried to marry her with her uncle.

Shilpa also writes about the sense of guilty for having so much comparing to her family after she went to Shanti Bhavan. For example, no one in her family could read or write, but she was learning English and how to add numbers. There are a lot of memories in this book; some of them are good and some are not. It’s about respect, hope, determination, strength and, at the same time, violence, discrimination, sexism and tragedy.

One of the saddest part of the book is about the mysterious dead of Shilpa’s elder sister, Kavya. This tragic event brought darkness into her life which she had to overcome either way. Shilpa’s father blamed her mother for Kavya’s death, after Kavya decided to runaway from home with her boyfriend. Some believe that she committed suicide, but no one really knows the true.

This book is a proof that education is the key to change this world. If wasn’t for Shanti Bhavan, I’m pretty sure that this book would never have been written. In 2011, Shilpa completed the high school, the first of her family to do so. Afterwards, she received a Master’s degree in psychological counseling.

The title follows from her father’s occupation as an elephant chaser; he chases elephants that feast on the sugar cane grown in their village. Namaste.

You can help to break the cycle of poverty by donating to Shanti Bhavan.

After I watched Daughters of Destiny I thought to myself that I could help the Shanti Bhavan Children’s Project somehow. Googling about it I found the Shanti Bhavan’s website which allows you to donate money using a credit card, something that I can do sitting on the couch. Then I thought “Is there any way to help a little more?”. In fact, yes, there is. Soon I discovered that you can apply to work as a volunteer and started to read the applications requirements. When I realized that I met all the requirements I thought “I think I can do it!”. So I started to plan. First, it takes a commitment of at least six weeks, and since India is far from Brazil, I would like to stay as much as possible. As a government employee at the university, I can not leave the country without authorization, unless I’m on vacation. The university would not give me permission, so my only option would be to take vacations. For this, I would have to stay a while without taking a vacation so that I could take two in a row and stay as much as possible. I thought about going in the middle of 2018 but it was not possible. So I started the application process in August 2018 to go in early 2019. After two interviews the result came out in September: I was not selected, but I was on a waiting list. I felt sad about it, but I would try again next year.

I stopped thinking about going to Shanti Bhavan for a while. I try not to read/answer e-mails after 6 PM but on November 7h, my birthday, I was getting ready to bed when I opened the e-mail app and there was an unread message with the following subject: “Welcome to Shanti Bhavan, Carlos!”. That was the best birthday gift I could get! That night I had trouble to sleep. Happiness, anxiety and worry took over me. I didn’t know if I would go because I would have to solve many things in a short time. I had a week to answer and after that period I asked for a few more days to think about it. Finally I said “Yes, I’m going to Shanti Bhavan!” and then the rush started. Plane tickets, visa, training, vacation scheduling and I had to find someone to look after my six dogs and three cats.

The Shanti Bhavan staff recommended to read two books. The first one is Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion, and the second is India Untouched: The Forgotten Face of Rural Poverty, written by Dr. George, founder of SB. At the moment I’m writing, I’m almost done reading both. Maybe I can comment on them in a future post. If I meet Dr. George I’ll ask him to sign the book for me!

I’m sure that this journey is going to be amazing. I hope I’m really helpful to them and can meet expectations. I believe that education can change people’s lives and that good people can change the world. That is what SB is doing, educating children, molding them to be goodwill people. I really appreciate the opportunity to help them in achieving this goal. You can also help by donating to Shanti Bhavan or maybe you can join me as a volunteer! Namaste.

 

Earlier this year I read Peter Singer’s book The Life You Can Save (2010) in which Singer discuss the fact that millions of children die every year because of poverty and what we are doing to prevent this from happening. Singer presents ethical arguments that make us realize that our response to world poverty is not sufficient. We have to change our way to think and act, seeking to live an ethical life.

At the beginning of the book, Singer poses the following mental exercise:

On your way to work, you pass a small pond. On hot days, children sometimes play in the pond, which is only about knee-deep. The weather’s cool today, though, and the hour is early, so you are surprised to see a child splashing about in the pond. As you get closer, you see that it is a very young child, just a toddler, who is flailing about, unable to stay upright or walk out of the pond. You look for the parents or babysitter, but there is no one else around. The child is unable to keep his head above the water for more than a few seconds at a time. If you don’t wade in and pull him out, he seems likely to drown. Wading in is easy and safe, but you will ruin the new shoes you bought only a few days ago, and get your suit wet and muddy. By the time you hand the child over to someone responsible for him, and change your clothes, you’ll be late for work. What should you do?

Of course, most people say that he/she would jump into the water to save the child. Then Singer argues: “What about your shoes? And being late for work?”. Well, I think that a pair of shoes and being late is not as important as the life of a child, and you agree with that. The point is that, according to UNICEF, 10 million children under five years old die each year from causes related to poverty. Sometimes they die because of a simple diarrhea, which is treatable and accessible for most people even in a developing country like Brazil. This lead us to the following argument presented in the Book:

First premise: Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad.

Second premise: If it is in your power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything nearly as important, it is wrong not to do so.

Third premise: By donating to aid agencies, you can prevent suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care, without sacrificing anything nearly as important.

Conclusion: Therefore, if you do not donate do aid agencies, you are doing something wrong.

The drowning child story is an application of this argument, given that ruining your shoes and being late for work is not as important as a child’s life. Most of us agree with that, but few have the habit to support aid agencies through donations that could have saved the life of some child in Ghana who died of measles. Putting yourself in place of the others is what thinking ethically is all about. There is a word in Brazil “cidadão de bem”, something like “good citizen”, that people use to refer to someone who doesn’t harm the others, doesn’t lie, doesn’t steal, support their children, pays the taxes, and things like that. Well, if this is enough to be a good citizen then I think it’s pretty easy to be one. To me, a real good citizen should do more than that. We should be thinking collectively rather than individually.

My own experience working as volunteer in a dog shelter (NPO) is that people are resistant to donations. We asked people who was interested in monthly donations to fill out a form so they would receive a payment slip by e-mail. Most of them paid one or two times. Only 37% of the payment slips are actually paid. You may argue that’s because we are taking care of dogs and not children, and that a child’s life is more valuable than a dog’s life. I will not argue tough I disagree, but I don’t think that’s the point. The reason is that, if people were really concerned about the poor children’s lives then the aid agencies would be receiving enough donations to prevent their deaths, which is not happening.

Singer also comments about some super rich people like Bill Gates, who has donated more than $29 billion and still remains one of the world’s richest people. He could donate more, but compared to some other rich people, Gates is one of those who give the most. There are some rich people that simply don’t care about dying children and live an extravagant life buying yachts, airplanes, dozens of houses and other “toys”.

The bottom line is that we should be doing more; in fact, Singer argues that if those who are financially comfortable donated 5 percent of their annual income (and rather more for the very rich), we would have enough to end extreme poverty. There are some online services that help us to decide to whom we should give, if you want to make sure that your money will be well spent. You can access the GiveWell and GlobalGiving; regarding the animal cause, you can see the top organizations on the Animal Charity Evaluators site.

Shanti Bhavan Children’s Project was ranked in the top 3% organizations in 2016 by GlobalGiving. Consider donating to Shanti Bhavan and help them to break the cycle of poverty! Namaste.