Site visit to Kuvempu Trust – Asha Chitradurga

January 22-23, 2003

See: http://www.ashanet.org/india/chitradurga.htm

I visited Asha—Chitradurga during my trip to North Karnataka, in which I visited Raichur City and the group Poirada in Hospet. I arrived in Chitradurga from Hospet by bus. I walked about a 1 km from the gov’t bus stand to the private bus stand, where I caught a bus going to Shivganga, which is on the Chitradurga—Shimoga route. Shivganga is about 23 km away from Chitradurga city.

Upon reaching Shivganga in the afternoon, I asked some people for the Veerabhadrappa’s house. I was lead down a main road. Interestingly, the fellow who guided me knew that there was somebody from Madras working in the village and thought that was me! In other words, he thought I was Shanmuga (!); I corrected that mistake. It was clear to me that people in the village knew that some work was being done in the village by Shanmuga, Prakash and his team. The awareness of the existence of some educational work being done was there.

I spent sometime with Shanmuga, Rudresh and Prakash, who were hanging out in the Kuvempu office. The Kuvempu office is the house of Siddamma of Bharti Trust, which runs the Irula project (also support by Asha; a WAH project). Prakash who heads the Kuvempu trust, is the nephew of Siddamma. And it is with Siddamma’s blessing that her house is “taken over” by the Kuvempu trust for their office. There is an informal agreement between them and there is no rent paid for the office. Rudresh is the center’s manager: he takes care of the office/house and runs the screen printing training center. He gets paid Rs. 400 p.m.

Kuvempu trust has been officially registered as a trust only in September 2002, although Prakash and his friends have been running informal tuition centers for the past three years. It does not have FCRA clearance and gets its funds routed through the Bharti Trust. There is no problem with this, since Siddamma is in full support of the work initiated by Prakash and Shanmuga. Shanmuga mentioned that the group wants to eventually get an office in Chitradurga since this would help them be in a more central place and could further their marketing contacts for their tailoring work and other income generating schemes. In addition, having a center in a neutral place other than in the village itself might be helpful politically; especially if the work becomes more social-change related.

The basic activities of the trust currently is running various tuition centers in about 9-10 villages. I visited two in Shivganga, 1 in a village a few km away (name is forgotten), and then one in Hullur. In addition to the educational work, the trust is also running tailoring classes in the office and also a screen printing class which is run in one of the rooms of the office.

Tailoring classes:

The tailoring classes are run by Dr. Krishnappa’s sister (NAME???), whose house is right in front of the office. She is teaching the class for free for the first batch. However, there is an agreement that she will get paid for the next classes. Interestingly, her young son also ‘attends’ the class, i.e., she has to also baby-sit her son during the classes. Dr. Krishnappa is one of the supporters of the trust, and he has donated one of the sewing machines. The classes are run in the morning. The first batch of students in the 6-month class initially had 12 girls and 2 boys. The students do not just come from Shivganga, but from places as far away as Nagarghatta and Hullur. Of the 14 that started the class, two of the women got married and left, two of them have started their own tailoring centers, the two boys have gone to Bangalore for more training, one dropped out completely and one has switched to screen printing. The girls who were there all want to take out tailoring in their villages, although I don’t think they have machines. These machines roughly cost about Rs. 2000-3000. Most of them were learning how to make blouses, langas (skirts), etc. They will use their learned skills for making their own clothing. Currently, there are about 5 machines in total. In fact, the day I was there, one or two of the machines had just come back from being repaired. Rudresh and Prakash were putting it back together.

Screen printing:

The screen printing class runs for about 2 months, although the initial class ran for 4 months. The classes are run in the front room of Siddamma’s house (the trust’s office). Rudresh, who in fact was a student in the first batch, is currently running the class after the teacher dropped out (don’t know why). He has been doing screen printing for about 4 months now. The initial class had 6 students, most of whom are now doing coolie work. The trust has offered them the possibility to do screen printing using their equipment. In other words, if the students get screen printing jobs, they can use the center’s equipment to do them, and keep the money for themselves. Although this offer sounds great, nobody is taking up on this, expect for Rudresh, Prakash, and other Kuvempu members. The equipment costs about Rs. 6000, and can be used by two people. Shanmuga and Prakash have been trying to get Asha volunteers to get their cards made by them. They cost at Rs. 1 per card. So far, Shanmuga, Srikanth, Jaishree, and others have gotten their cards made by Kuvempu. In fact, my cards are to be made by them as well. Perhaps other Asha members who are in Karnataka and nearby places can get their cards made by Kuvempu, as well. The center hopes to get other jobs around the villages such as wedding invitations, receipt books, etc. This can be a major source of income for the center.

Tuition centers:

Shivganga#1:

After a late lunch and some rest at Prakash’s house, I returned back near the office. The first center was being run at that time, around 6 or so. The center led by Lokesh is run right next to the office in a small room. The room is quite small especially given the number of students (26). There is a blackboard on one side of the room. The kids range from 6-14. Lokesh runs tuition centers, and so essentially they study standard school curriculum. I asked a few kids to read and then to write some sentences from their textbooks. They were able to do this quite well. The more impressive kids were the 5-6 7th standard students who were taking an examination that will lead them into an honors program (NAME???). These kids actually get a separate tuition in the office, away from the rest of the students. If they get into this program, they get to stay in a hostel that is quite far away from home. When questioned, the kids implied that if they got into the program, they would attend it.

I asked the kids about their future plans. About 50% wanted to be doctors, and the rest divided between engineers, policemen, teachers, masters, etc. I tried to point out that although about 15 students from here want to become doctors, the number of doctors in the area only number in 2 to 3. We then discussed how many of them wanted to leave their village. About 50% of the kids did want to leave the village. Perhaps the proximity to Chitradurga, a major urban center, allows them the possibility of moving up in the world, which typically implies moving from villages to urban areas. They must be exposed such migration all of the time.

During our discussions, the current went out, leaving us to discuss in candle light. Shanmuga told me that initially they wanted to use the kerosene (or solar???) lamps in the center that they use in the office in the centers. But, they did not want the kids to get used to that.

We could not attend the second center in Shivganga since Chandramma who runs the center was not feeling well, and she had to go to the doctor. Hence the tuition center did not run that evening, although I did visit the place early in the morning the next day.

Center#2:

Since the second center was not running, we decided to take a bus to a place about 10 km away from Shivganga (name of place???). When we got to the village, there was also no light in the houses, although there was one streetlight for the entire village, near the main village center, by the road. In this school, there were a lot more poor students it seemed. Most of the kids were much quieter and not as enthusiastic as the students in Shivganga. This only implies that the intervention is most definitely needed in these places. The fact that the students do come to the center late after their school means that parents at east care enough about their students’ education to send them here.

I returned back to Shivganga by bus. It was interesting to note that while we were waiting for the bus, Prakash and others told me that the bus drivers at night only stop for people who are wearing pants/shirts and look like people from the cities rather than the local villagers in lungis. Perhaps, it just means that people from the outside tend to go further and they get paid more. Or it could be part of larger discrimination pattern against the local villagers, where even the buses do not stop for them.

At night, I discussed various issues with Shanmuga. It was clear that Shanmuga had made a big impact on the group here. Although he was not a leader of the group, but one of the group, his experience and knowledge had helped Kuvempu people very much in terms of organization and understanding of larger issues. Shanmuga and Prakash had just bought a whole lot of new things for the centers such as new blackboards, chalk, and teaching materials and play materials. All of these would be handed out within the next few weeks…each distribution being an event so that the kids would appreciate them.

Day#2:

Early in the morning the next day, I along with Shanmuga went off to the Lambani Hatti in Shivganga. I wanted to visit the houses and try to find out how people are living in these areas. Lambanis are one of tribes that live in this area apart from Adi-Karnatakas (AK). We went to Lokesh’s house in the Hatti. We discussed life in the Hatti. I was told that the biggest problem in this area is drinking. Apparently people drink all of the 24 hours. Another big problem is the television. The TV is constantly on, even using batteries I suppose. Initially, Lokesh had started a tuition center in the temple. There are different temples here for different people. The temple has lots of room, where tuition can place. However, the people of the village did not appreciate the work being done by Lokesh. They realized that this work was perhaps detrimental to the status quo and did not want it to continue. In addition, the kids were not coming to center since they were glued to the TV. They literally threatened Lokesh with his life and claimed the tuition was disturbing the temple activities! At this point, Lokesh’s family felt that it was unnecessary for him to work in an area where his life was at stake. The center was closed down.

We then visited Chandramma’s house, where the second tuition center in Shivganga takes place. There were no kids, but I wanted to talk to Chandramma. She is a 10th std dropout. I asked her what she had failed; it was English and mathematics. I have been asking a lot of people who have failed their SSLC exams. And it is usually just English and math. So, it seems that specific tuition classes for those who have failed these exams would definitely help. Chandramma was initially reluctant to agreeing to take these exams again. But, after some discussions with Shanmuga and I, she agreed to take them. Shanmuga and Prakash should ensure that she gets the appropriate tuition before she takes the exam again. It would certainly help boost her self-confidence.

There are about 33 kids who have registered in the center, and Chandramma has been running it for the past 5 months. Of these kids, 19 are girls and 14 are boys. Four kids are dropouts and they do not go to school, 10 are very young (anganwadi-type kids) and 15 are in 1-8th standard in gov’t school. The 3 8th std kids go to Chitrahalli, which is a few km from Shivganga. According to Chandramma, coming to tuition clearly helps the kids from dropping out of school.

In the SC basti, where the second center is, there are 32 houses of which 4 are huts. The rest are somewhat pukka with standard roofing. Most of the people there are coolie workers and 10 of them are bonded laborers. The bonded laborers are essentially slaves to their masters, who are typically from the upper Lingayat community. They get paid Rs. 5000 per year and have to work for them throughout the year. All of the people have some land, about 1-5 acres. But, they have no borewells and rely on rain-fed agriculture. They typically grow ragi and jowar (different types of millets). All of the families are BPL (below poverty line). They get a yellow card that entitles them to get Rs. 4 per kg for rice, as opposed to Rs. 7 which is normal price in ration houses.

After these discussions, I headed back to Prakash’s house for a bath and a meal. We then decided to head out to Hullur, which is a 3-km walk from the main road.

Hullur:

Prakash, Rudresh, Shanmuga and I went by bus about 10-15 km from Shivganga. We then walked 3 km from the main road into the Hullur village. We got there around 5 p.m., and class starts around 6 p.m. The class takes place in Krishna’s house. Krishna is teacher for the center. Although we had come early, the kids had started to gather around the center. It was clear that someone new was in town and hence they were all curious. One of the center’s helper (?) decided to start some games for the students. They were all interested. They played various games, including kabbaddi, ‘who has the hat?’, running race, etc. It was amazing how much interest they had in the games. Apparently the kids usually play before each day’s classes. Clearly, having kids play these games before the tuition helps them. It was quite nice to watch them play.