Shishur Sevay

A few nights ago I dreamed I was trying to put our records together and that required that I establish records on the moon first, which I did, and then replicated here at Shishur Sevay. I kept asking, “How can I explain to people that I had to get this done on the moon first?” I’m working on a blog post about the past seven years here. Maybe that’s the answer as to why the dream.  I’m feeling a lot of pressure, trying to write about what it’s been like, and probably holding back a lot on what it’s really been like. I’ve been to the moon and back…. that’s what was required.  It was cold and lonely and void of vegetation.

Shishur Sevay today is thriving.  It’s glowing.  It’s what I’d dreamed it would be. So here is the blog I was working on before I went to sleep, before I understood I’d been to the moon and back.  The process of building Shishur Sevay has been brutal, but the product is beautiful.

Seven Years Together

My Girls of Shishur Sevay and Me

The first twelve girls came to Shishur Sevay in February 2007, so for me this time of year is always one of reflection.  They came with an array of abilities, disabilities, and medical conditions.  All came with scars, emotional and physical.   They all were socially and educationally deprived, and had led lives filled with violence and deprivation.  Then at some point, each had lost everyone and everything: parents, siblings, extended family, and community, and eventually were placed in a government institution.  These are the children I’d sought, the ones considered not adoptable in India or abroad. They had been rejected by adoption representatives before they were sent to me for “rehabilitation” by Order of the Child Welfare Committee.   With adolescence, three of the girls became too unmanageable, with behaviors that put us all at risk. My decision to return them to government care was very difficult, and taken after many attempts over the years at various treatments and therapies, but necessary if Shishur Sevay was to be the safe place it is.  I had not expected ever to have to do that.

This year we started an inclusive school, Ichche Dana Learning Center because educating the girls in outside schools “did not work.”  The girls are beginning to put their efforts back into learning.  There were several factors interfering.  One was their early deprivation that left them far behind their classmates, while they were also older than their classmates.   Science is now giving us information on the effects of this early deprivation.

http://ecceportal.in/index.php/news2/136-more-talking-longer-sentences-help-babies-brains

At school the girls were seen as “different” because of their origins, and they felt different. Teachers lowered expectations; some gave them false high grades because they “felt sorry” for them.  Others ignored them, or queried them about their origins and caste. The Indian system of rote memory left them too frightened to learn anything but the paragraphs they had to memorize and give back, an impossible task when you don’t have the foundations of language, any language.   Ideas of self-discipline, hard mental work, and delayed gratification were as foreign to them as I was..  If work was hard it scared them.   They lived in fear.  It was time to bring them back and start anew, which is what we are doing and so far it is working very well.

Taking notes at the Botanical Gardens

Presentation about the trees of Botanical Gardens

The girls did a presentation of their work to volunteers from Equal Health,a team of Australian educators who were with us  in January.

Ganga Presenting

Ganga and Bornali both presented by use of the iPad and the recorded script.

This is inclusion.  Everyone is able to learn something and to contribute.  Some of the coursework has to separated by level of understanding and skills in reading and comprehension, but the ideas and subjects and methods of presentation can be done by all.  And our children with the most severe disabilities, even if they can’t join in, they still make wonderful and appreciative listeners.  Everyone has a role.

Our eventual plan is for the girls who are able, to enroll in the National Institute of  Open Schooling which will allow them to sit for Class 10 and 12 examinations. We will send to college those who are able.  We will look at job training for others.  Some of our older girls may need to stay with us.  I’ve promised marriage to those who want.  We talk about dowry because it’s integral to the world they live in.

This year though, I find myself thinking a lot about our girls with the most profound disabilities and looking at the therapies and methods that have and have not “worked.”  The children thrive on attention, especially one on one!  If I were in the US, I’d be thinking about finding teenagers to just play with them, floor play, songs, things I’m familiar with.  I haven’t found that here.  My experience (and I add the caveat that I can only speak for my involvement with families since 2000) is that teenagers do not “babysit” or work outside their families.   Play happens sometimes as “therapy” by professional therapists, but that means it’s a very limited and expensive resource. As for cognitive tasks, my little ones would rather be dancing.

She’d Rather be Dancing

One day I will tell the story of what it took to get here, but Shishur Sevay is a wonderful place now and that’s how the journey must be seen.