Katha Lisu Schools

The LISUs of the North-East One of India 's most diverse original forests, Nandapha in Arunachal Pradesh, home to the Lisu tribes, is the world's only known habitat for the four BIG cats. It is serious endangered. The Lisus are commercial hunters. They are very poor, desperately needing basic health, education, income generation skills. [The largest Lisu hamlet is a four day walk from a motorable road]

Child to Mother, Child to Community Communication This is what we hope will happen at the Katha Lisu Schools. Can we help save the environment by working with the child? It's difficult to change habits. But Katha's seen the child as one of the most powerful communicators in a village that is still non-literate. Also, since many of our children share household duties and responsibilities in their teens, information (inter alia, on reproductive health, ethical sustainability), in their hands means more responsible, responsive adults. We've seen the need to start children off on important ideas before prejudices form.

The Katha Lisu School is the Centre of Community Creativity and Learning. Katha believes in "Uncommon education for a common good." Can the school curriculum/syllabi move students towards better LIFE Skills , a middle road between tradition and modernity without seeing commercial exploitation of the forests as the only way out?

Honing the Habits of Creative People (achieving excellence, honing the habits of the mind, heart and spirit) in communities:

We hope we can help restore the self-esteem and the nurturing traditions of tribals to the Lisus, helping them understand and grow into prosperity through--

Research, documentation and implementation by the community to address Basic Health needs, Environment Sustainability, Sustainable Livelihoods.

Community dialogue, sharing of tribal traditional knowledge/experiences so alternative means of ecologically sustainable livelihood will be evolved.

We thank Dr Aparajita Dutta for drawing our attention to the needs of the Lisus. It is her interest and activism that makes this work of Katha's possible. Thank you Aparajita!

IMPLEMENTATION PLAN

Making Learning Fun Since 1990, Katha's education philosophy emphasizes that learning has to be relevant, fun; Learning by doing. Katha's Tamasha!, an interactive health and environment magazine (started 1988) for children on BIG ideas - reproductive and family health, environment and social/gender/cultural issues. Tamasha! and her friends will help make learning fun, community enriching, and provide role models.

Relevant Education Curriculum We see the child from a non-literate family as having special needs and the curriculum will be developed keeping in mind the larger needs of Lisus, and their environments. This would make lifelong learning viable.

Interlinking Tradition and Globalized Realities The specially designed syllabus and the T/L material developed and used will draw upon the best of traditional/tribal knowledge and practices as also on modern ideas of education and pedagogy that Katha brings in from its 15 years of proactive work in educating of extremely poor communities and their children.

Teachers from the Community Intensive inservice and preservice teacher training has been Katha's forte since 1990, in story pedagogy and development of T/L material. The training supports sound and creative classroom ideas on gender and other invisible social \, cultural issues worked sensitively into formal, curricular teaching. They will also learn to own, operate and support learning through solar-powered computers.

Teaching Learning Helping community women/teachers develop their own low cost T/L materials that make learning fun, relevant and creative, increasing lifelong learning. Emphasis will be on environment education through stories and fables and proverbs from Lisu and other cultures of the Northeast. As Tamasha! e-magazines.

Village as Classroom Schools in small villages, using all the historical, cultural and other resources they inherently offer, to make learning a holistic activity for every child.

Vocational, Entrepreneurial and Scholastic heritage In an innovative and exciting way, Katha's curriculum would link scholastic work to real-life problems and the needs of the job market, integrating scholastic, vocational, and entrepreneurial skills.

Involvement of the Community Involvement of the Community in the child's future. Katha has already over a year of experience of working with the community. The partner institution has much longer association with the community looking at issues of environment and sustainability. The partners will work in close association with the community in designing the curriculum and T/L material so that they are fully involved in the future of these children.

RESULTS AND SUSTAINABILITY

At the end of a 5-year period, there will be linked up schools, catering to most of the primary schools needs of the scattered communities. And we hope the community will be able to take over the responsibility of educating their children's imagination in a way that brings together tribal knowledge/experience as well as modern day pedagogy and learning praxis.

Today, the women have very few means to earn through optimum use of their skills and expertise. Survey of skills and expertise and a need-based survey would be complete and an action plan will be in place for long term sustainable employment venues for the women.

Today, the Lisus hunt commercially, thus depleting the forest cover, endangering the survival of flora and fauna of the region. Many of the species, like the Hornbill, are seriously endangered. The Katha Teaching/Learning materials will focus on sustainable growth of the community through an action plan that will be initiated by the women and the children, for the protection of the forest they live in/by.

Today; Lisus die needlessly of ailments like diarrhea, malaria and jaundice. Recently, 40 people died in a small village of 400 people. Tamasha is an acronym for The Activity Magazine for Spreading Health Awareness. And through workshops in tribal remedies and bringing back into practice some traditional cures alongside with more modern medicines and first aid plans, we hope to make the health needs of the community something they can care for, themselves.

The Lisus are entrepreneurial people. The Kathashala will grow this interest and this natural ability, so they can support themselves through means other than commercial hunting.

Once the training of teachers has taken place, the initial T/L material developed, necessary digitised resource base set up, and the efficacy of the alternative system of providing education services demonstrated, the Governing along with other donors supplemented by community resources will be able to sustain the continuance of the school and for expanding it to cover all the families, not only here but also other tribal and inaccessible areas in India.

The past experience of 15 years in the Katha Public School has already demonstrated the efficacy of the story pedagogy adopted by Katha and its education philosophy. Our preliminary efforts in this remote area of Arunachal Pradesh with one school has amply demonstrated the effectiveness of training and transfer of knowledge to these areas. So the high potential for results is guaranteed. This project will help us to consolidate this and expand it to the entire area, thereby addressing issues of scaling up with community involvement.

The cost per child per month works out to only $2, which is far lower than the average cost of education per child in the public education system (to which they anyway have no access.)

The project is focussed on sustainable learning not only for the children but also for the community as whole. Also there is an element of Katha learning from the community of traditional knowledge and practices in the areas of health and medicine and the environment, and using this to strengthen the knowledge base used in its other learning centre.

In case you'd like to help/volunteer/mentor, write to us at volunteer@katha.org.

You know you can actually make a difference when you are with katha!