Report on visit to the Timbaktu Collective, Ananthapur Disctrict, rural Andhra Pradesh.
Visit on Jan 9, 2002 by Shankar Srinivas (Asha-London)

note: not all the photos here were taken on this vist. click on the thumbnails for larger images.

We took an overnight bus from secunderabad and arrived in ananthapur in the early morning on the 9th. Accompanying me was my mother, who had heard a great deal about the timbaktu collective from me, and was interested in seeing their work first hand. From ananthapur, we took a bangalore bound bus and got off at the village of chennakothapalli, which is roughly an hour and a half from ananthapur on the banglore highway (it is roughly halfway between Ananthapur and Penukonda on this map). The timbaktu collectives office is a short walk from the bus stop.

The timbaktu collective is a group of social activists who have been working in the area surrounding Chennekothappali village for over a decade. Chennekothapalli is in ananthapur district, the second most drought prone district in India. The majority of the people here work as agricultural labourer, or as marginal farmers on their own land. The primary crop is groundnut, but this is dependent on the often erratic rainfall. Ananthapur district has a literacy rate of approximately 12%.

two views of the degraded land near chennekothapalli village

The timbaktu collective has been working with the village communities in three primary areas - ecorestoration, empowering the women folk and providing education for their children. Most of the children in their schools have dropped out of government schools, generally because they are frequently abused by the teachers there (either physically or verbally, in the form of demeaning comments about their caste, appearance or background), or because of the dreary nature of the government schools (overcrowded dingy class rooms and a curriculum taught without much imagination, emphasising rote learning).

The underlying philosophy of the collective is that childhood and learning should be a joyful experience, so they employ alternative teaching methodologies in their schools to engage the interest of the children. The education they provide emphasises hands on work as in making models with clay or hard paper (to learn about geometric shapes), making toys like kaleidoscopes and periscopes (to learn about the physics of reflection), or electromagnetic cranes etc. The instruction is through dialogue and the children are encouraged to be inquisitive and ask questions, rather than just memorize facts. The children are also taught about their own local customs and culture, such as the local folk lore, traditional dances and songs, and local art forms. This is so that the children do not grow up alienated from their own customs and feel secure in the value of their own local traditions.

children at the collective's day school in Chennekothapalli village playing and learning to knit

The schools run by the collective are not government recognized, nor would they want them to be, as they do not want to have to follow the stipulations of the government board in the running of their schools. They however are aware of the advantages of having an official government certificate, so their children are encouraged (and prepared) to write the state level exams as independent candidates at the 8th and 10th classes, so they can get a government pass certificate. For the first time last year, two of their children sat for the 10th class exams, and both passed, one with first class (if I remember correctly).

My mother and I were greeted by Narayana at the chenekothapalli office of the collective. Narayana is an engineer by training, but has been a full time social worker for a number of years. He teaches at the schools of both the collective and as a real volunteer with the local government school. The A.P. government , in a effort to reduce the expenditure on teachers salaries some years ago introduced a new position called volunteer teachers, who are paid approximately half a teachers salary, and dont have to be as qualified. Narayana is not a volunteer in this sense, but in the true sense in that he does not accept a salary for teaching at the government school.

The collective operates three day schools, one in chennekothapalli (their first school, and still their largest) and two in nearby villages. In addition to these three, the collective also runs a residential school in a piece of land they own (named timbaktu) approximately 4km from chennelkothapalli village. From the chennekothapalli office, my mother and I were taken by jeep to timbaktu, to visit the residential school.

The collective bought the land named timbaktu so that they could demonstrate the strengths of permaculture, a type of agriculture that is ecologically sensitive, and does not rely on the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. The collective has been protecting the hillsides surrounding timbaktu from grazing and forest fires to demonstrate how simple it is to aid the reforestation of the area. It is remarkable how much greener and lush the protected hillsides are in comparison with the more distant barren hillsides. A number of the members of the collective have built houses for themselves on timbaktu using local materials and skills.

A stone slab welcomes you in telugu and english as you enter the eponymous piece of land owned by the Timbaktu Collective (at left). The other side of the slab bids you farewell with 'Live simply, that other may simply live'

They have a novel meeting space here a large open plan hexagonal hut with shallow steps surrounding a central area. This meeting space is used for a variety of things, for example

• short 4 to 5 day camps for children not in their schools, to encourage them to continue in school (or to join a school), and so the children can simply have a fun time socialising with other children
• learning workshops for the benefit of the collective (for example, two years ago when I last visited, they conducted a gender sensitization workshops for the members of the collective, to examine inbuilt gender biases many of us grow up with)
• meetings of other voluntary groups (the Jan Vikas Andolan, a national federation of activist organizations, held a meetings here in 2001 and AID held a meeting here in early February of this year

at left, the hexagon, a space the collective uses for community meetings, training session, camps etc. the picture at right shows members of the collective dancing kolatam outside the hexagon. they were taking a break during an intensely self-analytical workshop on gender sensitization.

The residential school in timbaktu is meant for children who live too far away to be able to go to one of the collectives day schools, or come from troubled familes (one of their children for instance is an orphan, who was being looked after by her abusive brother and sister-in law, and another is the child of a single mother who works as a casual laborer in Penukonda, a town some two hours by bus from chennekothapalli). The children at the residential school live in timbaktu, and eat at the common kitchen. In addition to learning all the normal things at school, they also have a vegetable garden where they grow vegetables and fruits which they sell to the timbaktu kitchen (where they eat all their meals for free). The amount they earn from the sale of vegetable and other things they may make during the course of their schooling (like woollens or art work) is meticulously noted in account books. To this is added the nominal monthly fee (Rs. 10/mo) charged from the parents of each child. When a child finally leaves the school, all the money they earned while in the school, and all the fees their parents paid for them (totalling approximately R.1000 to Rs.2000) is given back to the child in the form of a fixed deposit set to mature a couple of years in the future, so that the child is not tempted to spend all the money immediately.

I was shown around the timbaktu schools, by subba another member of the collective. Subba did a b.tech, and then an m.tech in iit madras. He then went to iit-mumbai where he did a PhD in watershed management. he has been working with the collective for the past five or six years, and is involved with both their ecorestoration work and the alternative education work. We walked around the school and I was shown one of the new school building that the collective was able to build with ashas help. Its a pretty looking hut like building, open on three sides so that it is very airy and spacious. it has been decorated by the children with little things that they have made themselves. There were a small group of children studying by themselves in one portion of this space. There was another group of children hard at work reading in another much smaller hut that looked somewhat half finished. Subba proudly told me of a new activity the collective had started - teaching their children how to build huts. The children enjoyed the activity of building things and you could see the pride with which they occupied the hut they had built themselves. This also gave them the knowledge to build their own homes if they needed to once they had grown up. The children had built their huts kept together with mud so that it could easily be taken apart again and the materials reused by other children to build something else.

a school building constructed with funds from Asha. the photo on right is of the inside of the structure, showing hanging decorations made by the children

the kids like studying in the structure they built by themselves as a fun project

I also saw the other older buildings of the timbaktu school, familiar to me from previous visits. The building in which the children and a couple of the teachers currently sleep has been around since before 1995, when pradeep das and I first visited the timbaktu collective. The collective has been spending a lot of money in the regular up keep of the building, such as rethatching the roof every couple of years, and protecting against termite infestation etc. the children living in the residential school have also grown in number and age, and the current living space is not enough for the children. Given these two factors the collective has decided to build new hostels for the girls and boys of the school using better materials which may work out more in the short run but which they expect to save them money in the long run, in that it would require less maintenance. They also want to build proper bathrooms for the use of the children (they currently bath in the open).

children and teachers of the timbaktu school posing in front of one of the first buildings constructed for the school. this building is currently serving as a dormitory for most of the kids. note the solar panel on the roof of the building - there is no regular electrical supply in timbaktu. the photo at right shows the side and back of the same building. the kids are free to decorate their buildings with drawings of anything they like.

I have a proposal from the collective for this infrastructure development and have made it available online. Look through it, it describes their needs in detail. I would strongly recommend that asha support the collective in the building of the dormitories and bathrooms. I and a few other in asha have witnessed the work of the collective since 1995, and I am convinced of the positive impact they are hiving in the lives of village the community, and certainly in the lives of the children they work with. I was told that construction work can only be done between the months of feb and june, because in the other months, there is the possibility of rain, that can damage the partially constructed buildings. We should make a decision on this soon and let the collective know if we can support the cost of the construction, so that they can plan accordingly. I was also told recently that a termite infestation has been found in one of the buildings, increasing the urgency (normally they would have spent a lot of money correcting the infestation, but if they can build new buildings, they wont waste money on this).

After saying bye to the children to the timbaktu residential school, we went back to chennekothapalli village by jeep, and visited the prakurti badi (nature school) run by the collective there. This school is a short walk from the main office if the collective. Asha-NYCNJ had provided funds for the purchase of a computer some time back, I was able to see the computer in use by one of the older boys, writing a report in telugu. The collective has received software that lets them use a standard keyboard to produce characters in telugu, so it is easier for the children to use. They also have a number of educational cd-roms that they've received from friends which they use to teach the children, and familiarize them with computers. the computer has been a big hit with the childremn, and they've all become used to using it.

a student using the computer at the prakruti badi to write a report in telugu

Asha has also been providing funds for a resource centre for the village, comprising a library and environmental science lab. The collective wanted to build the library and lab on land adjoining the nature school so that it could be used by the children of the school during the day, and the after school hours, would be a resource for the entire village community, where anyone who was interested (adult and child) could come to look at newspapers, magazines and book. There were various complications and delays in getting a piece of land adjoining the existing school, so the collective eventually had to settle for a piece of land opposite the school, a short distance down the road. There is an old warehouse on the land they have bought, which they intend to make into the library and lab. They already have purchased many books and comics (like amar chitra katha) for the library, which they currently have in the nature school, in the same room as the computer. They also have chemicals and kits and models (of the human body etc.) for the environmental science lab, again stored in a small room in the nature school. Currently, when they do experiments, they take the chemicals out of the store room and so the experiments out in the open. Hopefully once the resource centre is completed on the recently purchased land, the library and lab will be better organized in a more spacious room.

the land and building recently bought by the collective with Asha funds, for use as a library and resource centre for the village

When I visited the nature school, many of the children were engaged in activities like clay modelling, knitting and embroidery. After a while, they had a break, and they ran around and played for a while. After a while of this, we all sat down together, and they were introduced to me, and asked me questions about my work (developmental genetics), cloning, cancer etc. one of the children was particularly well aware of the things reported in the news paper recently about the possibility of cloning humans, and asked me about this. After interrogating me thoroughly, the children performed some impromptu dances for me that they had learnt at school. It was great to watch the children enjoy themselves so much dancing and singing.

children at the prakruti badimodeling things with clay and performing a local dance

We eventually bid farewell to the kids, went back to timbaktu to have a quick dinner with the children of the residential school and left for the nearby town of dharmavaram to catch the train back to Hyderabad.

This is the fourth time I have visited the timbaktu collective in the past eight years, and I never cease to be amazed by the work being done here. The commitment of the members of the collective is amazing. Having seen a number of other asha supported projects in both rural and urban settings, i am further convinced that it is one of the better projects supported by asha. The collective has a well thought out ideology, respectful of and in tune with the interests of the village folk, but also forward looking. They show a balance of idealism and pragmatism hard to achieve. They approach the major issues facing the rural community in an integrated manner, working to protect the environment, empower the women folk and create a space in which the children can grow. I strongly recommend that asha increase its support of them, and learn from their experience.

shankar srinivas
London
Feb 22, 2002