June 30th, 2018

Walking tour of our street

I was quite nervous about this one, as it was the first time we were planning on exiting the safe space of the children’s center to walk down the street of Nagahaswatte, where many of the children live. As much as I was afraid of being judged by the community, there was perhaps more at stake for the older students of the class, as they seemed embarrassed to be seen observing their own environment with drawing boards, risking being made fun of by relatives and other neighborhood kids for taking part in the art class with a bunch of little kids. They bargained with me:

‘Can we just walk in the beginning bit instead of the whole street?’ 

‘Do we really have to walk the whole street?!’ 

‘Can I go at the back’ 

I wasn’t expecting this response, but when I heard it I could understand where it was coming from. The art class was their escape - it was probably weird to have it mixed into their everyday lives.. 

Leaving the Children’s Center

The day before, we had assigned 5 group leaders to be in charge of 3 or 4 younger kids. We hoped this would give several of the older kids a sense of responsibility. As the plan was to walk down the street (and not lose anyone) we also had the support of both the Children’s Centre coordinators, Ms. Pramila and Ms. Neranjala.

Armed with paper, pencil and drawing board, we set off to exit the gates of the children’s center. We asked the children to draw two vertical lines to demarcate the street, and as we walked along, we paused to give hints such as this: 

‘Can anyone draw the gates of the children’s center?’ 

‘Can you draw the tuk-tuks parked on the left side?’ 

‘What do you see on the right side?’ 

Then we walk a few steps forward. 

‘What are the houses on the left? Whose are they?’  They knew. 

‘Look at the Chickens burrowed in the playground’ 

‘Do you see the beer cans thrown under the bushes?’ Try keep note of everything - the good and the bad’ 

A few more steps down. 

‘Do you see the humps on the road?’ 

‘How many garbage trucks are parked across the playground?’ 

‘Did anyone notice the staircases leading to all the houses? How many are there?’ 

‘Does anyone know why there are staircases?’

We accepted any answer. 

We did not cover the whole street, just up-to the playground as I realized this made some kids uncomfortable. These were some of the sketches:

As in the class before, we wanted to consolidate these sketches into a single joint map. However, as we were running out of time, we left that for tomorrow. The walking tour was already enough excitement/ change for today.

June 31st, 2018

Keeping the peace in a complex community

A prompt for my reaction to the following workshop - I cannot quote exactly,  but did I hear something this?! (Quote from memory)

‘How can these children consider community problems when it’s their parents and relatives causing it?’

 It doesn’t matter who said it - What matters is that I needed to change an attitude towards workshops like this, not only among children, but adults as well.  

More on this below:

Collective mapping

Today was the most discomforting but also perhaps the most enlightening of workshops. It stemmed from my second attempt at a mapping exercise, carried through over two days as we ran out of time on the first. After yesterday’s ‘walk’ along around 50m of Nagahaswatte road, today we tried to dissect everyone’s sketches and information into one cohesive map.

For example, we’d ask - 

‘How many garbage trucks were parked across the playground?’

And the answer would sometimes be 10, and varied up-to 21.

Ultimately two kids decided it was 17 so that was considered the answer. We made a collective draft on the white-board, then proceeded to transfer it onto a large sheet of combined bristol: 

While creating this map, we had some yellow sheets of paper, with happy and sad faces printed on it. We asked them if they can really think hard about all the areas on the map - and explain the places that made them happy and sad. If multiple students agreed on it, the student who initiated their point would be given a happy/sad sticker to paste it on that spot on the map. This was great because many students participated because they wanted the pleasure of sticking the little yellow faces on the map. 

I had recently been in conversation with two of the founders of an organization called ‘Sunayra Lanka’, Mira and Nayantara. They work primarily with teenagers from Batticoloa, who are preparing to enter the workforce. Given that they are working with an older age group, they constantly emphasized the value of conversation, of discussing the events that just took place and how we can learn from it.

I felt that this was a good juncture to begin heightening the ‘conversation’ aspect of the workshops. The questions were based on identifying opportunities within their communities and knowing that they can imagine ways of making the most of it. When it came to identifying the opportunities, these were the descriptions of the :( faces. (All quotes from memory, translated from Sinhala)

‘The garbage trucks parked behind the children’s center, across the playground. It stinks’

FYI: These trucks weren’t there when I first arrived.

‘The community center right next to art class’

What about it?

‘The garbage truck drivers now live there, and drink - we are sometimes scared to walk past it!’

We talked about the idea of a community center. Clearly it’s definition had changed after some time.

I asked if there are any ideas, as children, how we can change this situation. A response was:

 ‘Miss, now the government is building a new community center, to be on the ground floor of the sports stadium that they are building on the other side of the playground. So we don’t have to do anything. Don’t worry’ 

I ask, what’s going to happen to the existing community center? Will that become a happy place after a new community center is built? What can we do to make it a happier place?

Then began the discussion of the drinking and bad behavior at the community center being attributed to some of the kids parents. Danger to the children was also discussed by the adults in the room. 

I assured them that I was only asking for ideas. It’s about knowing that change can start from us, at age 7, making a small change. We hadn’t even talked about it yet.

I tried to divert the conversation from the community center to the playground.. Why is there a sad face in this brown patch here? 

‘There’s a big pothole there, sometimes people throw trash in there and children fall in’ 

There. That’s a problem we can solve. Can’t we? I suggested. What can we do? 

I got a few meek answers, that involved taking some sand and filling it in. 

Again, safety worries, fear of territory claims...

I soon suggested that it’s time to go outside and play. 

After the break, we diverted from the Nagahaswatte map and decided to talk about the Iratu bridge project, that had been the space filler throughout the class.

I felt.. sad. 

What I wish I could change

I underestimated the gravity of complexity of this community, or any- for that matter. I know that something needs to be changed, and a space for safe conversation - real conversation between both children and adults need to be fostered. I just don’t know how to change it yet. 

On a brighter note,

This weekend was spent hyping the children up to tackle the BIG scale of Colombo city with a tour! They were very excited to take home permission forms to get their parents signature that enables them to go on the trip. Despite the uncomfortable conversation, they perked up much faster than I did as they moved their thoughts to what was next in line.