"Uplifting" efforts by Suchana

Book Project by Students of Suchana

For those who contributed to the Suchana Centre building fund, I thought you might like to have more information on the kind of education program going on there.

You may find this article to be of interest. It is a review of the book that Suchana recently published in Bengali, featuring creative writings and illustrations by the students. The review goes on to include interviews with teachers and shows the spirit of Suchana's philosophy!

Please note that the article has one misinterpretation: it seems to say that the children at Suchana don't go to the government schools because they cannot access them - but nearly all of them do go, and suchana acts as a back up to that.

If you are interested in getting a copy of the book, you can email me or Kirsty at:milward.bose@gmail.com

Thanks to our guest

tamio: diary workshop
Originally uploaded by dalbhat

A friend of ours often has couch surfers staying with her and since two people were coming from Japan she pointed me in the direction of their websites. When I had a look at TAMIO'S website I got very excited by his collage and writing talents. He has self-published his travel diaries. Ruchira and I rigged up a way for these two couch surfers to visit Mustard Seeds on the way to their couch, and in so doing... I was able to snag another guest to come visit my students at Shikshamitra.

Last Thursday, we all sat in a big circle and talked about diary writing.
How many of you keep a diary?
When would you keep a diary?
What sort of things do people write in their diaries?
Why would someone keep a diary?
What sort of things would go in a diary?
After a discussion prompted by these questions, Tamio and I passed around our own diaries and let the children look through them. Then we talked again about what kind of things a person can include.

Using a book-origami fold we turned big sheets of brown paper into small notebooks for each of the kids and then we let them start making their own collage-filled diaries. Most of the kids got the idea right off, and started making beautiful works of art but we ran out of time so I will continue the class next week.

Thanks so much to Tamio and Jody for joining us and sharing their ideas and creativity with us!