Site Visit to the Timbaktu Collective Pradeep Das December, 1994

hi nagesh, shankar and i visited the timbuktu project on the 11th of this month. the outlines of the general set-up of the place are as follows: chennakotapalli is about an hour from anantapur. the main office of the timbuktu collective is in this village. they run a school called the nature school here. they also run 5 other village schools in villages in this region. the village schools and the nature school are basically the same, but the nature school was their first project and consequently their dearest and theats why it has a different name. one of nagesh's questions was about the term 'nature school' and whether they taught any traditional subjects there. they say that 'nature school' is meant to imply simply that the children learn through natural and friendly menas and not by rote or thru beatings etc. their latest project - called the timbuktu school - is a residential school which caters to 20 students. the teaching here is high intensity in the sense that the children stay here and go home only once in three or four weeks. both shankar and i were struck by the immense confidence the children projected. they seemed really happy to be there. they were obviously more intelligent and thinking than the other children we saw and met. the timbuktu collective was started by mary and bablu ganguly a few years ago. they were both in a movement called the young india project (organising labour unions etc.) until the late 80s, when they decided that wanted to work wih children. they have a good team with them. there's one woman who's worked all over the country helping people set up these alternate schools, and there's also a former engineer who's now in charge of their reforestation, nursery etc. projects. they gave us a copy of their latest grant proposal which i will mail to you soon. this includes all the details about the project, their expenses etc. they forsee the most important uses of the money to organise childrens camps and to organise workshops for their 'facilitators'. they also want to train people from outside their organisation so that the message will spread and so that others can learn from their experience. their training programs require funds for a period of 3 to 5 years. the basic things here are that mary and bablu seems very straight people and dedicated. i must here add that they have two kids in rishi valley (it was obviously not possible to ask how they paid for it or anything, but it is true that they have been there for a few years and the timbuktu school is only a year old - so maybe they couldnt keep them there). they had originally planned the timbuktu school to be for the children of social workers in the region, but they realised that the idea wouldnt be very popular. from my impressions, i do beleive that had the timbuktu school been in existence a few years ago, their children would have stayed there. i dwell on this at some length because i realise that the whole thing sounds quite wierd. we did ask them whether they had any plans to take in more children at the timbuktu school and they said not at the moment. they seem to want to consolidate their position before opening up new schools etc. they stressed time and again that one of their primary purposes was to give children a 'space' or niche for themselves in their villages. they believe very strongly that given the right type of schools, parents would want to send their kids to schools, and the drop-out rate in these villages would decrease. i'm sorry if this whole report is pretty jumbled. once shankar comes back, he can add his thoughts to the this. the curriculum etc. are outlined in one of the annexures of the report i'm mailing to you. personally, i don't think you should worry too much about the curriculum because whatever they're doing now seems to be really effective. the children, if they so wish, will be trained to take the 7th or 10th class exams using the AP open school system. they were being supported by this group called Action Aid (a british group) and this other group called the IGGSS (indo-german something). their funding ran out as of dec 94. shankar and i were also thinking of presenting this project to our chapter here (as dinesh or nagesh had suggested). there are several parts to this proposal, so it shouldnt be a prob but maybe you could communicate your thoughts to us as soon as you've decided. please do let us know if this will be awkward in any way. -pradeep