A couple of months ago, I had the privilege of finally meeting Lalita Ramdas. In the course of our conversation, she said she had been wondering whether peace would finally come to South Asia when women came together, side-stepping the usual issues, to work on issues relating to the environment.
The confluence of ‘women, nature, peace’ is one that is common to essentialist feminism, but it is also a practical connection. Women are most disempowered when there is ecological degradation. They pay the price for it at multiple levels including their own physical safety. They are also differently affected by conflict and rarely develop a vested interest in it. So is this old conflation, in fact, a natural conjunction of interests, issues?
EPI’s vision integrates environmental awareness and gender equity into its work. Prajnya’s own broader vision includes Initiatives that focus on women’s rights, on teaching peace and on creating security.
What do you think? Let’s begin the new year with this conversation!
We finally posted Anupama Srinivasan’s study, “A Survey of Civil Society Peace Education Programmes in South Asia” on our website, take a look.
As the abstract says:
This paper surveys the engagement of civil society with peace education in South Asia, specifically focusing on initiatives in the classroom. It describes the key players engaged in peace education efforts and seeks to understand their motivations. It discusses the nature of these interventions, focusing on the specific activities and processes involved in a particular project. Finally it highlights some of the key challenges each country faces in implementing and sustaining peace education in classrooms.
We are delighted that this study has been well-received for its conceptualization, its utility and its timely distribution. It has received a mention in other websites, such as the MacArthur Foundation’s Asian Security Initiative blog and the Global Campaign for Peace Education newsletter.
See: Thoughts on Prajnya Peace Initiative, August 14, 2009.
On Tuesday, August 4, 2009, EPI@Prajnya had its first programme, a small seminar intended to share the findings of the three Sir Ratan Tata Trust studies that we had carried out in the last ten months.
We invited a small group of old friends and new to hear us out on these studies as well as our plans. It was an “un-launch,” if you would, and we were delighted with the warm and enthusiastic reception our work and our plans got.
Left: Priya Rajagopalan
Below left: Anupama Srinivasan
Right below: Akila R.
Who was there? Apart from Amukta Mahapatra who had to leave before this photo was taken:
Right at the back: Nimi Kumar
Back row: Padma Subramaniam, Vasughi Adithyan, Uma Vangal, Priya Rajagopalan, Katie Bush, Anupama Srinivasan, Subhashini Selvanathan
Front row: Swarna Rajagopalan, S. Priyadarshini, Gunita Chandhok, Akila R, V.R. Devika, Kala Doraiswamy, Nivedita Gunturi.
A far fuller account of the day’s proceedings is actually available on Sangam India’s blog, we are embarrassed to say! Check out what they have to say!
A Prajnya website re-design has been in the pipeline for a few months now, and we will soon get it ready and get links to the research papers up.
The gentlest person I have ever known is probably my greatgrandfather, Padi Venkatrama Iyer, who was universally called ‘Anna.’
Born in Kanchipuram, Anna was left in his teens with the responsibility of fending for a large family of many children. His maternal uncle called him to Burma, where he found a job as a clerk. Anna, in turn, sent for his brother.
The brothers would take a long walk by Rangoon harbour every evening. One of the regular scenes they witnessed was that of Indian coolies unloading cargo from ships. At the end of a day’s hard labour, the coolies would queue up and their supervisor would pay them…. something. The coolies could not count the bags they unloaded and they had no idea how much they were owed. The supervisors took advantage of their illiteracy.
Anna and his brother saw this day in and day out. They started chatting up the coolies, and persuaded them to learn to count. 1-2-3-4-5. Then, a little more. Then, a little more. And a little more, until they could at least look out for themselves. Those arithmetic sessions became a nightschool for Indian labourers.
Anna and his brother had no grant. No land. No property. No licence, exemptions, accreditation. No social networking. No great standing in society. Where they stood, there they started.
They taught reading, writing and arithmetic to countless people, but to generations of their children and grandchildren, they taught this simple, invaluable lesson: Action does not need props. Do what you can, when you can, where you can, as you can… and soon you can do more, more often, in more places, in more ways, for more people.
Prajnya, and Prajnya’s Education for Peace Initiative, begin in this spirit. Right here, right now, on this blog, in our imagination and in our work, in your hearts and minds, in this network.
Watching four-year olds work out issues through dialogue and seeing boys in pink slippers was at first a revelation and then an inspiration for the Education for Peace Initiative.
The gnawing thought was, “Where do biases and stereotypes originate?” In turn this led me to question, for example, why some people have a gender bias and I don’t. In this process of self-dialogue or soul-searching as one may call it, I discovered that my gender role models were strong, confident, independent women who I had watched share views on human rights with much passion, as well as enjoy the dance-around-the-trees type romance on screen and miss no opportunity to connect with friends and family, and somewhere the proverbial light bulb was ‘lit.’
It has been a long time since and the work is moving slowly, but the road ahead holds promise.
This blog is EPI’s way of reaching out to and staying in touch with the community of educators, peace activists and peace educators with whom we have connected in the course of carrying out the research studies that were supported by the Sir Ratan Tata Trust in 2008-09.
- We hope it will serve as a forum for us to share ideas and experiences. We hope you will contribute to the blog.
- We hope it will enable sharing of research and new thinking on education, peace education and peacebuilding.
- We hope to use it as an online clipping file, posting articles that are useful and relevant.
- We hope it will be an accessible storefront for our own work, so that no matter where you are, you can drop by and catch up with us… leaving notes of your own, of course.
In other words, we are setting up this blog, but we are setting it up as a shared resource for a larger community of peace educators around the world, therefore this is also your blog.
We hope you will visit often and bring something to leave behind on its pages, each time.
peaceprajnya
Swarna Rajagopalan
priyarajagopalan