Sujata’s Dream

Entries categorized as ‘Project Progress’

State of the Project report

February 10, 2008 · 2 Comments

Since its inception in 2001, the Tathagat School has been operating on next to no funds, fueled primarily by the hopes and optimism of a small group of men in the village of Bakrour, and the occasional small donation from tourists passing by. The monthly contributions they have been receiving from us covered about 20% of the budget they would need to fully fund school operations. Obviously, the quality of education they have been able to provide suffered significantly as a result.

Here in Seattle, our efforts to promote this project and fundraise for the school have ground to a halt in the past several months due to burdensome concerns and uncertainties regarding the operations of the school. We attempted to straighten things out through emails, but the very real challenges of language incompatibilities and culture gaps have made this attempt dissatisfying and incomplete.

Last month we received notice from the Board of Trustees at the village, that a community-wide meeting took place, where it was regretfully acknowledged that due to lack of sufficient funds to run the school properly, as well as an unresolved issue of physical location for the school, the School would have to close its doors in April 2008, if no new funding sources are identified. The kids, we are told, would potentially be enrolled in government schools (infamous for their poor/non-existing education), or return home to work in the fields with their parents.

My heart sinks at the thought that the hopes and dreams of so many will be shattered, and the hard (and wrong) lessons this experience would teach them all, child and adult alike, about the nature of life, about themselves, and about human nature.

This month (February 2008), Ellis is in India again, and will be visiting our school toward the end of the month. He will be meeting with the Board of Trustees and make every effort to sort out and get answers to the many questions and issues that have risen over the past few months, regarding the operations of the school and its future. We are eagerly awaiting his stories and impressions, in order to decide how best to proceed in supporting the Tathagat School. I hope very much that the information that emerges from this visit will give us reason and motivation to amplify our efforts again, to spread the word, educate others about the plight of the community of Bakrour, and to fundraise to build and run this school.

I believe that together with you and other caring people who will find out about this project, we can raise the $8,500 a year needed to fully fund the school. So much is at stake.
I will keep you posted as things develop.

Orna.

Categories: Project Progress · Updates about the School

Project Update

August 10, 2007 · Leave a Comment

Hello dear readers,

We’re so glad that you are reading our blog! And hopefully forwarding it to others! We would love to hear from you, so please take a moment if you care to and use the “contact us” link above to let us know what you think of this blog and our project, and what you may want to see or learn more of.

We are still feeling overwhelmed with happiness and excitement about a tremendously generous donation of $2,000 received recently. It meant so much to us! Each donation we receive, not only makes the dream of building the school closer to reality, but represents a vote of confidence in our efforts and intentions. It infuses us with optimism and energy, and gives us hope for the future of the school and the community of Bakrour and Ganga Bigha villages. This is a good place to mention again that every cent of your donations goes directly to the school, not a penny is used for overhead or administrative costs.

If you’re local (Seattle) and would like to volunteer, we can use your help! We can use help creating a simple brochure for the school that will help raise funds, and someone to contact area businesses and organizations to inquire about donations and about linking our blog to their websites. Please let us know if you are interested.

A nifty PowerPoint slide presentation is in the making, with pictures from our visit to the village in January-February 2007, accompanied with stories from and about the village, and soon will be available to be shown anywhere in the community. Do you have a bunch of friends or family who would be interested in our project? Or, know of an organization that would be interested? We would love to come by your gathering to share the presentation and answer any questions.

Categories: Community of Supporters · Project Progress

New blog name!

June 29, 2007 · Leave a Comment

Dear readers,
We have a new name! Why, you ask? And, who is Sujata?
We named our blog originally after Sanjay Kumar, the Tathagat School’s Principal. Ellis met Sanjay several years ago while traveling in India. Sanjay told Ellis about his dream of educating all the village children. In fact, he had already started a small school using a borrowed building in the village. Now, some 6 years later, we are working hard along with Sanjay and the Tathagat Welfare Trust to make this dream a reality. You, too, are helping to make the dream a reality with your interest in reading our blog. But back to the name change… Little did we know, when we first named the blog, that singling out one person, however instrumental he or she is in creating something important from which the entire village would benefit, is incompatible with Indian values and ways of thinking. Unlike our western individualistic way of thinking, people in India, especially in the more traditional rural settings, see themselves first and foremost as members of social groups – families, communities, or classes – and consider the wellbeing and interests of the group before their own. Consequently, as we found out, Sanjay was quite uncomfortable with being alone in the “limelight” and taking all the credit. It was communicated to us that the dream of educating the children was the Tathagat Welfare Trust’s dream, and the community’s dream as a whole, and that this truth should be reflected in the name of the blog. We learned a valuable lesson about Indian culture as well as about our own.

Sujata was the little girl who met the Buddha, then Siddhartha Gautama, when he descended from the mountain cave in which he spent six years in severe asceticism, trying to find a way to end the suffering inherent in the human experience. Eventually, he realized that the answer he sought lay not in shunning our bodily needs and desires, but in moderation and mindfulness; that suffering emanates from our attachment to our needs and desires, rather than from having them in the first place. He was headed for the nearby town, when on his way, near the banks of the Falghu River, he met a little girl named Sujata, who offered him his first meal in a very long time – rice and milk – which he accepted. This symbolized the beginning of a new phase in his quest, a new understanding, taking him a step closer to enlightenment, after which he became known as the Buddha, or, ‘the Enlightened One’.

Because the village of Bakrour is located right around the site of this auspicious meeting, and because a large Stupa (commemorative mound) commemorating the event is located there, the village itself is also known as Sujata Village. Our blog’s name refers not so much to the original young girl named Sujata, but more to the whole village community, whose dream it is to lift itself out of extreme poverty through education.

As always, we would greatly appreciate hearing from you. Please use the “comments” link below to let us know your thoughts about the blog and our project, and any questions or suggestions you may have. Thanks much!

Categories: Project Progress

A Schoolhouse of One’s Own

June 6, 2007 · Leave a Comment

One important aspect of our project is that our first goal is to get a school building erected that is completely dedicated to the education of the village children. Right now, the school has to borrow space from a communal building that is available for various village meetings. Our long-term goal, once we get the school built, is to ensure that it is an ongoing endeavor, supported by continual donations.

At the present time, the school operates on a shoestring, occasionally getting donations from visitors to the village who come to see the stupa where, as Buddhist legend has it, a young girl from the village named Sujata met the Buddha with a bowl of milk and rice after his many years of fasting. One of these visitors a few years ago came to the village and discovered the school.   She made a one-time donation she earmarked for uniforms for the students. When you look at the pictures of the students in this blog, you will notice that many of them are wearing light blue shirts and striped ties. These are the uniforms this generous donor provided with her one-time donation. As a point of interest, in any Indian school, the uniforms are, well, uniform—all light blue shirts with striped ties.

The uniforms were donated to the school a few years ago, so they are passed down as the years pass by. Of course, you probably noticed that not every student is wearing a uniform. But uniforms are not priorities for the Trustees right now—building the school is what they see as most important in the short-term. Then, developing a donation base, which will ensure that there will not be lapses in funding for the basic operation of the school—electricity, teachers’ salaries, school supplies, and hopefully a lunch program, is the long-term goal.

To end poverty through literacy remains the focus. It is wonderful to have such dedication to this goal on the part of the Trustees, who started the school in 2001 and remain as administrators of it on a completely volunteer basis. Their belief in the reality that these children will not have a future without literacy fuels our passion to help them make this happen, and make sure that the school has ongoing donations to keep it going and growing.

Categories: Community of Supporters · Project Progress

Welcome!

May 17, 2007 · Leave a Comment

Welcome to Sanjay’s Dream’s blog!

This blog is about building a free elementary school in a poor village in India. We are a handful of Seattlites, wishing to help the people of Bakrour and Ganga-Bigha villages achieve their dream of breaking the cycle of extreme poverty, through access to education. A free school is already being run by volunteers in the village since 2001, in a tiny space and with next to no funding. There are not enough funds for supplies or teachers compensation, nor enough space to accommodate all the village children. Without this education, the children are bound to repeat the cycle of poverty, hardship and powerlessness experienced by their parents.

We need to raise only $7,000 more, to be able to construct a new school building, and hope to be able to break ground at the end of this year (2007). In addition, we hope to create a community of caring people who will develop connections with, and a special place in their heart for, this rural community and its children. We hope you will become part of it.

Please check out the links on the right for much more information, including pictures of the students and life in the village, and join us in this exciting project. We’ll be posting new information and stories from the school and the village weekly, check them out!  Your comments, questions, suggestions, interest, support and contributions would be greatly appreciated and will make this project a success.  Click on comments below to write a comment and to view comments left by others.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Orna, Ellis, Rebecca and Tom.

Categories: Community of Supporters · Project Progress · Updates about the School · Village Life