Since my early childhood I have wanted to learn English, since knowledge of English is essential for pursuing higher education and for communicating with the wider world. Such education is almost impossible for untouchable children to obtain. I collected old newspapers and learned 10-20 words daily. In this way I slowly learned English.
We both decided to dedicate ourselves to giving an English Medium Education to untouchable children in our district of Andhra Pradesh. So in 1994 we founded our organization, the Deeper Yet Welfare and Educational Society. Shyamala teaches at the School and Orphanage and my brother and I organize fundraising and donations. We are funding our work totally by our own initiatives. It is our hope to reach as many people as we can in our area.
I attended the 6th International Permaculture Conference in Australia in 1996 as a funded delegate. I was inspired by what I saw and learnt, and resolved to implement permaculture in Deeper Yet's projects on my return to India. We have taken the first steps, and our wish now is to secure some land for this purpose. At our invitation two permaculture teachers from Australia, Rick and Naomi Coleman (Permaculture Education and Design Systems), spent three months with us in 1998 to assess our projects, evaluate our development plan, conduct workshops and training in permaculture, and assist us in planning for a sustainable future. More recently, in early 2000, I came to the United States to study Permaculture for three months as an apprentice at Lost Valley Educational Center in Dexter, Oregon, and continued to refine plans and seek funding for our expanded project.
Deeper Yet: Mission Statement We are dedicated to improving the lives and conditions of the poor and lower castes in Andhra Pradesh. We aim to help people stand on their own and come out from their poverty by providing education and training for children, women, and farmers. Our goal is to implement permaculture principles to help make our projects sustainable.
School Project We run an English Medium School with certification from the Government of Andhra Pradesh. It is the only such English Medium School in this locality and has a current enrollment of 125 children from mixed castes, but mainly untouchable children. We established the school in 1985. We encourage children of all castes to mingle to create equality for the future. All children learn English.
The School has four teachers and operates in six small rooms. In the future our wish is to provide improved washing and toilet facilities, a play area, and larger classrooms.
The School is funded totally by the fundraising efforts of Deeper Yet, as most of the children cannot afford education. We also provide books, educational materials, and in some cases, food. The cost to provide education, food, and clothing is $4 per child per week. So $210 provides for one child's entire costs for a year.
Orphanage Project Our society has established an orphanage for children who have lost their parents, been illegally born, or are girls neglected by their families. All are from the untouchable caste. Currently over thirty children live in the orphanage, aged 4-12 years.
Our desire is to provide such children with basic shelter, food, clothing, and education.
All our funds are collected locally and we provide rations each week. Sometimes it is hard to fill the children's stomachs, and they are sleeping all in one room on mats on the floor, but minimum needs are being provided.
We hope that if we provide their needs and an English Education, these children will have a bright future and may one day serve people like themselves and contribute to the improvement of their society.
Developing Projects: Women's Cooperatives Through our work we have been approached by women in two communities asking for education and training to help them stand on their own by earning an income.
We are now helping the women to form groups with elected leaders to assist them to organize and cooperate to define their needs. We are conducting short courses in developing home gardens.
Farmer's Training We have just started running workshops for farmers interested in planning for a sustainable future with more stable and diverse sources of income. We are teaching the permaculture approach using organic farming techniques.
Future Directions We are ready to expand our projects and have a development plan that would see the school and the orphanage consolidated on one site, with adequate facilities and ample play area, and permaculture gardens for producing food for ourselves and an income for the school.
Consolidating the projects in this way will reduce costs and travel time and allow more efficient use of resources. The site will provide for itself after initial implementation, act as a model of permaculture for the community, and allow for skills-based training in agricultural techniques for students.
Our project proposal and development plan has the following objectives:
-- To purchase a piece of land approximately five acres in size.
-- To construct low-cost buildings with permaculture design features for school rooms, toilet facilities, kitchen, and accomodation.
-- To merge the educational component of the school and the orphanage into one operation to conserve resources, time, and money, and to encourage mingling amongst children.
-- To develop permaculture gardens and play areas for children's education and training, and for leisure activities.
-- To produce income-generating crops on the remaining land so as to move towards self-funding and sustainability.
-- To use the site as a model of permaculture principles and as a center for related permaculture workshops once established.
-- To provide future employment opportunities on site for older orphans.
Our income-production activities will include developing a seed nursery on site for plant propagation, establishing a food forest for fruit production, developing organic, chemical-free crop rotations using integrated pest management, and building up a diversity of crop species and seed stock, especially non-hybrid varieties.
We plan to plant a range of fodder species for stock animals, which may include a small-scale buffalo dairy, free range chickens and ducks, and pigs. Animal manures will be used as organic fertilizers; milk, eggs, and meat will provide food for the orphanage; animals will be selected to provide pest and weed management for crops, and will be cared for by orphanage residents, providing training in animal husbandry.
The Deeper Yet Permaculture Demonstration Center will provide a site for workshops for local farmers on developing permaculture principles; home garden permaculture and animal husbandry workshops for women's groups; school group visits; and seed banks for distribution to local villages. The site will be registered in the Permaculture Global Directory and reports on site development will be provided to the Permaculture International Journal and other permaculture publications to attract overseas interest in the center.
Currently, the School and Orphanage impact over 150 children for whom education, especially in English, would not otherwise be possible. It is our wish to become even more effective in our work.
If we could work on one site, we would avoid the wasted time and expense of the two-hour drive between the school and the orphanage, and the necessity of having extra teachers. We could concentrate our efforts in one area and increase our impact on the children for less cost. The orphan children benefit from mingling with other children, and have more chance of a normal life.
Permaculture gardening will increase our ability to produce food and income for supporting ourselves in the future. Also, it is a very good way to teach the children the skills for their future employment. As such, it has potential to impact the children's lives in many ways, including improving the diet with fresh organic produce.
Once the site is established, it is our hope to expand our impact even further to surrounding villages by having a permaculture center for demonstrations, workshops, and seed stock preservation. Our objective in the future is to be a successful demonstration of integrated permaculture design for the East Godavari District in Andhra Pradesh.
Please send a donation to this important project (make your check payable to Deeper Yet) to:
Deeper Yet Welfare and Educational Society
Diwancheruvu - 533 103
Rajangaram Mandal, East Godavari District
Andhra Pradesh, India
or direct transfer to Rajahmundry Account Number 01100005144 at the State Bank of India.
K. Vijaya Kumar is cofounderof the Deeper Yet Welfare and Educational Society and a recent Permaculture in Community apprentice at Lost Valley Educational Center in Dexter, Oregon. Contact him at [email protected]
About Permaculture Permaculture is a design system for sustainable agriculture and human settlement. The concept originated in Australia in the 1970s and is now taught throughout the world with very successful outcomes in developing countries.
"Permaculture is a practical concept....It enables people to establish productive environments providing for food, energy, shelter, material and non-material needs, as well as social and economic infrastructures that support them....Permaculture means thinking carefully about our environment, our use of resources, and how we supply our needs. It aims to create systems that will sustain not only for the present, but for future generations." (Permaculture International Journal)
©2000* Talking Leaves
Summer/Fall 2000
Volume 10, Number 2
Politics, Change, and Ecology