As I leave behind Sheopur, in Madhya Pradesh, rushing to catch the bus to Gwalior, a cloud of dust follows the autorickshaw. Though a six-hour bus ride through the jungle lies ahead, my heart and head are filled with the impressions of my last 10 days spent at the Kasturba Gandhi Ashram School for girls.

Along the roadside, five figures are walking silently in measured steps, straining under heavy loads of firewood. One is a young girl, and I watch as she tilts her load forward until it touches the earth to rest for a few moments. It reminds me of a canoe easing its load on portages in the Algonquin Park wilderness in Ontario, closer to my home in Canada. Strange, how a simple gesture can echo similarity and disparity. Maybe the young one is new at this work; after all, she can't be much older than 12 or 13 years. A load of wood carried for 12 km will earn Rs 80-90. Without schooling, such hard labour is the path for young tribal village girls.

Retirement has led me to my own meandering path. It has brought me from Ottawa Valley to India through the Bhopal-based Ekta Parishad (People's Forum). Rajagopal P.V. leads this mass-based organisation involved in training and capacity-building among rural youth. My husband, Paul, and I had attended a presentation by Rajagopal in Pembroke, Ontario, shortly after the Ekta Parishad's 2007 Janadesh March from Gwalior to New Delhi. The organisation seeks to bring about change through Gandhian methods such as satyagraha and padyatras throughout India.

Hearing him talk about mobilising 25,000 participants for justice and land rights planted the seeds of our involvement. Paul's four trips to India followed, while I continued working as a High School Visual Arts, Photography and World Religions teacher. I have had the privilege of working with youth engaged in Social Justice at our school, Bishop Smith C.H.S.; while Paul, as researcher and writer, has been engaged in media work and advocacy in India.

Education and identity

Ekta Parishad has a long history of village work in western MP, and I was curious to see how the focus on rights over land, water and forests of the disadvantaged communities links to the education of the adivasi girl child.

When Rajagopal suggested I visit a tribal residential school, I felt an inner alarm. My students in Canada had participated in a commemorative art project (Project of Heart) that had raised awareness about the atrocities of the residential school system imposed by the Canadian government from the 1920s to the 1970s on the Inuit, Metis and First Nations peoples (aboriginal communities across Canada). The present Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada carries the victims' experiences of physical, psychological and sexual abuse and neglect. Loss of culture, loss of language and loss of identity is a violation and a loss for all sides.

How does India honour diversity, and struggle against caste that is entrenched socially and economically, I wondered. When I arrived at the school, housed in a large compound with trees, and an open, uneven space in the centre for the ‘open-air classrooms', I felt reassured. Around the perimeter were several buildings — a meeting room for local leaders, grain storage area, a kitchen, dormitories, latrines and the administrator's home. The compound was enclosed by a brick wall and a metal gate kept cows out of the ‘classrooms'.

The Kasturba Gandhi Ashram School houses 100 girls from villages in the district of Morena.

While the majority is Sahariya, there are a few Bhil and Bhilala students as well. Ekta Parishad's reputation for supporting the tribals on land issues has built a firm foundation of confidence among the parents. In fact, Sahariya village leaders have a meeting space within the ashram so that contact is maintained. They are willing to send their daughters to the school because they know they are going to be cared for “as if they were in a family”, and that their culture will be honoured.

The evenings brought village musicians, who played the drum and harmonium, duly joined by the watchman, Gangaram. The girls danced and sang — the older ones taught the youngsters the intricate hand movement of a shawl dance. I was reminded of the Golden Lake Pow Wow, and the beautiful regalia and swirling fringed shawls closer home. Wouldn't it be wonderful to connect the Aboriginal youth in Canada to their international sisters and brothers? Or, in fact, any Canadian youth?

Adding literacy to an oral society

All the girls at this school are dropouts from village schools that boast imaginary attendance, often so that government food allotments can find their way to undeserving and probably empty pockets.

Arriving at the age of 11 or 12, the children receive government support for Grades 6, 7 and 8. The challenges include child marriage (several are married by 14) and poverty — the girls earn meagre, but desperately needed, wages for the family.

The literacy rate in MP is 62 per cent, but it's lower in Sheopur district — 47 per cent. It drops to 22 per cent among women, and a mere nine per cent among tribals in the district.

The parents of the boarders at Kasturba Gandhi Ashram have never attended school. Ekta Parishad considers literacy a tool to liberation — understanding that an oral society can easily fall to exploitation by those who use the written word for their advantage. Including Gandhian values in the daily working of the ashram is a move supported by staff and is evident in the caring atmosphere.

Our week together was spent in exchange and developing relationships through art lessons and teacher workshops to encourage co-operative learning (rather than learning by rote) and English language games. Interviews with the students were inspiring. Sukama, 13, has been at the school for three years. Her teachers are proud of her accomplishments and she is determined to become a doctor so that she can serve people in remote villages. When asked what the greatest barriers were in her schooling, she replied, “I could not write or read Hindi and I had never left my village. I am happy to be here. At home I would have to graze goats, here I can learn to read and write. The teachers are good.”

Vinoda, 14, worries about her widowed mother, the sole support of six children. She wants to be a teacher and compliments her teachers at the ashram, hoping that her education will help her family. When I asked what she is proud of as a Sahariya, she smiled shyly, “We are a people that knows how to live with little and be satisfied.”

The Sahariyas of Sheopur are among the five primitive tribes in India. Access to education for their girls remains a challenge, though Ekta activists have voiced the hope that one day there will be Sahariya graduate doctors and teachers. In time, Vinoda and Sukama could well be one.

(The writer is a retired OECTA teacher from Canada.)© Women's Feature Service

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