Art Camps: Some of us at NIRMAN pursue art professionally, and others simply enjoy it very much. NIRMAN believes in exactly this parallel course in all the arts. We give professional training and we nurture appreciation. Our first Art Camp was in Mussoorie in June. Our second Camp was in Betawar in the last days of December. Thirty six of us stayed in Betawar, the lovely riverside village where NIRMAN has its second campus, and we cooked, walked, exercised, discussed, and did at least ten kinds of art projects, including portraits, landscapes, cubist art, still life, string art, recyclable materials’ collage, and pleine aire painting. Our visiting teachers, Isabel, Militza, and Gina, and our NIRMAN associates Aurelie and Sandy, made our children from both campuses and the adults produce wonderful art. Look out for it in the 2008 calendar, The Winner.

Sports: We got a pakka basketball court this year, and played many matches. The court also doubles for other games and activities and next we can use it for roller skating. 26th January was our Sports’ Day with varieties of races and activities. We had Yoga and Karate for most of the year. Yoga is our special strength and we continued it all through the summer and winter camps.

In 2008, we will have a Sports Complex at Betawar on our beautiful land on the Ganga. Basketball, volleyball, badminton, and cricket, and smaller children’s games, will begin the programme.

Vidyashram—the Southpoint School: A rich calendar year, with events in music, dance, art, sports, theatre, and scholarship distributed throughout to highlight the way we integrate the arts in our learning. Some of the many highlights were: a Fair on “Excellence in Education” in March, with multi-media performances and an Open House, on both campuses. The classrooms were an open exhibition of everything the children had been working on during the year. We try to be dispassionate in saying this, but we have to say that in both the Nagwa and Betawar campuses the children’s work was superlative by any universal standards. In Maths, Science, Social Studies, English, and Hindi, there was such a variety of projects and activities displaying their multi-dimensional learning that it was mind-boggling.

Other programmes included: Sports Day, Independence Day, Teachers’ Day, and Halloween. Outstanding activities included class V and VI going every week to the Bharat Kala Bhawan to have a class in Museology with Professor Nawal Krishna, Associate Director of the Bhawan. The goal is to set up our own museum. In the Ganga Project the children have been learning about the current Ganga Action Plan and Varanasi Nagar Nigam’s proposed alternate plan for cleaning up sewage pollution. They are painting walls and cleaning up spaces in the city. In the village there are eight bright murals already on aspects of environmental problems such as “Acid Rain” and “Soil Erosion” relevant to the villagers. On 15th August they did a puppet show conceptualised, researched, created and enacted by them on their own.

Vidyashram—Betawar-on-the-Ganga: We celebrated the first anniversary of this new campus on 13th July with songs and dances and the distribution of awards by the Gram Pradhan, Srimati Champa Devi. We are proud to share with you the special achievement of this campus: it is a school which is completely integrated. The village children in it are joined by our children from the city campus. The same syllabus is taught by the same teachers in both campuses with the same results!

We would like to publicise to the whole world soon that contrary to opinion, “ordinary” children from villages (and cities, as we already know) can be taught at the same levels of excellence as elite children.

Green! The topic for our annual fair this year was the environment and we called it Green! To highlight our problem-solving approach. From October to December the children researched the subject and designed their presentations. We had the first part of the Fair in December and will have the second in March (come and attend the second if you missed the first!). There were performances on what the earth was like, has become, and should be like; the pollution we cause; the love we have for nature; and the things we should do. There were also some exhibits on different creatures, on garbage in the city, on recycling—and listing them does not do justice to their creativity. The displays on garbage for instance, were framed by garbage: odd things collected from different piles in the city. The whole campus in Nagwa was showcased as a recycling-conscious, green space with a new compost pit. Perhaps the most beautiful spot in it was a kitchen garden nurtured by class I.

Teachers’ Training: The most intense programme was a two weeks full-time one in June in which some twenty teachers trained for school teaching in professionalism, teaching methods, and India’s educational culture. Training continued weekly in the term following. NIRMAN conducted work-shops with other schools and Priya Iyer, the Vidyashram Principal, was the key trainer.Teachers make lesson plans, do arts activities with Sandra Hansen, and play leadership games during training

Parents’ Workshops: held in July, August, and September, they discussed in turn ideas about how children read and should read with help of everything around them; how to encourage writing and confidence in the self; and how family practices including watching television, should be monitored by parents who want to help their children succeed. These workshops were conducted by our teachers Prabha, Anupriya, and Alka.

Music Studio: NIRMAN had ten programmes over the year of classical Indian music and dance, directed at an adult as well as a child audience. Our Musicians’ Network works for artistes by giving them a stage and serious students, and by recording compositions and maintaining a music library. In August we had four students studying tabla, sitar and shehnai. Dan Piccolo, their group leader, taught drums and Western music at NIRMAN. We missed Steve Rush and look forward to his return.

Narendra and Kuber Mishra performed for Parampara, NIRMAN’s series of classical music and dance programmes, on Assi Ghat facing the river. In August we had shehnai by Rama Shankar and a fusion concert by Anand and Dhananjay Mishra and party. In October we had sitar by Virendra Mishra. We had many music programmes by and for children in Betawar and Nagwa. We had many music programmes by and for children in Betawar and Nagwa. A highlight was the revival of a children’s chorus.

The “Ramlila” Project: That there are extraordinary neighbourhood productions of the Ramlila in Banaras in September and October is well known. Funded by the India Foundation for the Arts, NIRMAN did a six month project with the children of Khojwa mohalla (neighbourhood) to teach them about the Ramlila, as well as about themselves, their history, their neighbourhood and city, and the arts, especially theatre. We believe that a rich cultural activity like the Ramlila could be powerful in children’s lives if taught and interpreted. At present not only are most children relatively indifferent to their surroundings, they actively denigrate certain practices of Indian music, dance and theatre because overwhelmed by film versions. We wanted them to enjoy all and be able to see themselves vis-a-vis all.

For six months we researched, wrote, discussed and worked on our own teaching skills. For two months we worked regularly with some sixty children in Khojwa. We filmed the project as well as the Ramlila itself and this documentary film called “Children Playing Gods” will be available for screening in fall 2008. Ramlila kits are available in March. The kits have books to read, worksheets, games, activities, teacher’s guide, and materials such as masks and images. The kit is geared to teach Social Studies and Arts of India.

Bookmaking Studio: One of our authors, Nandini Majumdar, wrote “The Kingdom of Banaras” in conjunction with the Ramlila Project. New books were researched. We wrote a major grant for our Bookmaking Studio and should be able to embark on expanded production in 2008-09.

Theatre Studio: A new theatre team was put together in July and trained by Irfana Majumdar, the NIRMAN Theatre Director. Fulbright scholar Brian Brophy did some interesting classes on various theatre techniques. The team put on improvised productions, a play “Akbar” at the Banaras Hindu University, and participated in a workshop on Theatre for Social Change with Jana Sanskriti, a group from West Bengal, in BHU. There were regular film showings at NIRMAN followed by discussions of acting, oppression, modernity, and art. Films included the Marx Brothers’A Night at the Opera, and Running Away to be Happy, a documentary on Vietnamese children by Louise Valdez.

Nita Kumar records that she learnt more about conceptualising and articulating history than ever before when she led the theatre team in a performance before the people of Khojwa of their own history. Some papers on this history-construction are forthcoming.

Dance Studio: NIRMAN’s Vidyashram children are trained, highly innovative, 9 to 12 year old dancers. In the first quarter of the year, they learnt improvised dance and choreography, and had a performance class that made performances within a few hours each. In the second half of the year, they learnt contact improvisation and “Bollywood” dancing, and performed during the December fair.

Research: The Centre for Postcolonial Education continued research projects on children and their families in Banaras and Betawar; on exemplary methods for teachers’ training; and on the Ramlila and the teaching of history to communities in ways that link up the private and the official.

Seminars: We had presentations on their subjects of research from Vasudha Dalmia (Theatre), Nawal Krishna (Art History), Narendra Kohli (Literature), Chaise LaDousa (Education), Mira Mohsini (Anthropology), Dan Piccolo (Music), Kashmir Singh (Public service), and Dell Smith (Public Policy). Priya Iyer, Principal, Vidyashram, presented a paper on the topic “Curriculum for Teacher’s Education” at the Department of Education, BHU. The research projects and the research-based seminars exemplify our philosophy of always working on the ground together with doing research that may be discussed academically.

Community outreach: Chandrashekhar Kabra, one of our Board members, spoke to Betawar villagers on the possibilities of better savings and investments in a surging India. As he put it, “Bare log iska fayda bahut tezi se le rahen hain. Apko bhi lena chahiye (Rich people are taking advantage of this very fast. You should also do so).” Look out for a plan from NIRMAN in 2008 about how you can save, earn and donate for your preferred causes.