SITE VISIT REPORT (INITIAL WRITEUP)
by Shankar
Sent February 5, 2005

Both Anu and Krishna are very committed to their task. I was there for 2 
days and had some time to chat with the children of the neighbouring 
villages who come to Thulir. All the children make it a point to come to 
Thulir in the evening everyday after school (except when it rains and 
Sittling is completely cut-off) - it is not easy considering that many of 
them go to school at 7:30 and are there until 4:00pm.

Currently 2 other boys (Mohan and Senthil) in their 10th class are 
learning exclusively from Anu and Krishna. Given that their exams are 
approaching, Anu spends a lot of time with them. Of course, their own 
children, Siddharth and Satyaarth, are also home schooled.

The method of teaching is mostly based on joyful learning - through games, 
activities and story writing. Anu showed me the things that were made by 
the students during the last year - they take cues from the Kathai Aruvi 
stories and make some of their own with pictures. They have also prepared 
some local puzzles in the kathai Aruvi way. Most of the material was in 
Tamil, so I wasn't able to read it.

There is a small boy named Bharati (5 years old). He was going to the 
local school. But because of constant beating by the local teacher, he 
started developing a severe complex and actually got physically sick like 
fever, stomach pains etc. Rege and Lalitha (the doctors in Sittlingi) 
asked their parents not to send him to school. He is a drop-out now, but 
comes to Thulir everyday for 2 hours to learn. He is only 5, but I was 
very impressed with his math and reasoning abilities that he has picked up 
just by observing other children. According to Anu, he has put on about 5 
Kgs since he stopped going to the regular school. 

Anu and Krishna's lifestyle is true to their philosophy. They live in a 
small house which they designed using only local materials. They use solar 
power for their electrical requirements and try to be as environmentally 
friendly as possible (for example, they recycle all human waste for 
composting purposes - I saw this for the first time).

In terms of looking ahead, they want to start some vocational training for 
the children of thulir with the help of Prof. Ravindran (IIT-Madras) who 
is moving to Sittlingi also. However, they are not committed to the idea 
now. They want to essentially spend all their time with the children. The 
2 days I was there, Anu was spending all her time with the kids.

I am not sure I have anything critical to say about them. They would like 
Asha Princeton to be more hands-on with them, if possible, and not treat 
it like a regular project where we wait for their reports. I explained 
that with the shrinking volunteer base and regular full-time jobs, such 
interaction are not realistic.

They had a request for Asha Princeton regarding the fellowship. They asked 
me if we would assure the fellowship for the next 2 years instead of on a 
year-to-year basis. The reason was that, if Asha rejects the 3rd year's 
fellowship, they need at least 6-8 months to look for alternate funding. 
They are not very keen on approaching other funding agencies - they would 
rather have Krishna take some part-time designing positions to pay for 
their expenses. So if you can raise this in the meeting, that would be 
great.

I said that it is not usual for Asha to approve funding for 2 years 
without contingencies like reports etc. (but I also said that reports are 
usually a formality and unless we hear many negative things, we usually 
continue our funding). They said that if that is the case, it will be nice 
if we can approve the 3rd year funding by October or November (of course, 
all this is under the assumption that we approve the 2nd year fellowship 
:)). 

Overall, I strongly recommend extending Anu and Krishna's fellowship. I am 
sending a few pictures that I took while I was there in the next mail. 
Cant send to many because of size restrictions.