The Mindful Village Project: Sharing the practice and Learning
Rural education is very close to my heart.We often talk about stress and busyness of urban life,the impact on city children but we seldom talk about the life of children in the villages,the issues they deal with:the limited opportunities they have,the real economic hardship,the rigidity of caste system,the divisions that run deeper than just drawn as borders for how the villages are divided,the gender issue,the number of children discontinuing post the school for difficulty in commuting to cities ,money, family; they have so much on their plate-so much of uncertainty, challenge to survive and yet the courage to smile.
A group of more than 30 underprivileged children from the age of 5-16 years along with their parents, family and friends received a Mindfulness-based programme at Genpapuram,a village near Gingee in Tamil Nadu last year.
I delivered the sessions in the village church,for there wasn’t any hall where we could accommodate everybody and it was received with much warmth and open-heartedness.The village pastor and school headmaster, Armstrong Alagasen helped to translate the sessions from English to Tamil.I had no fear,no lack of confidence that anyone will have any trouble in understanding or meditating.Not even once,the instructions were requested again.There was such stillness,balance and beauty,the way we all meditated in the lap of nature.Today,I received a video from Volker Jebraj in the village(he is a senior secondary student).He decided to do this video in English to give others a view of beautiful Gengapuram and feedback of sessions.I have few videos of the sessions and many are in Tamil.I will post those soon with subtitles.
Watching this video was such joy.I still remember all the stories children shared,I will write more on all that soon in a separate post.
The organizers and village residents who run the Neela Home Trust, shared their feelings of balance,ease and relaxation after the sessions.I will make efforts in uploading all the videos as I sit in deep appreciation and inspiration for these children and their families.
Thank you to dear friends-Mary Morgan,Reema Moudgill and everyone at Gengapuram, our connection has grown by every day, month and year.
Sarabsri 