My office/my closet:
I have been working on the Child Leader Project from my bedroom in Moreno Valley. The picture above is my closet. To the left, we have a remarkably glorious map of the subcontinent and surrounding countries (graciously donated by a young woman from UCR's Rivera Library). The right acts as a calendar, showing the next 12 months of my life on this project: time spent in India, breaks, Finals weeks, other events, etc. Next to that are five sheets of paper marking each of the phases of the project.
Calendar and Phases:
The five phases are as follows:
- Phase 1: India: Leadership Camp and ArtsBlock Collaboration
- Phase 2: Awareness and Fundraising in Southern California
- Phase 3: India: December Leadership Summit and College Field Trip
- Phase 4: Final Fundraising and Thesis Write-Up
- Phase 5: Next Steps for Sustainability and Follow-Through
These pages are split into three sections: "Project," "Thesis," and "Other."
I began this process in order to create clarity in my mind: I simply can not think about steps for sustainability in April, contacts for my thesis write-up in December, or January's fundraising activities right now-- but I can't forget them, either! This space allows me to jot down things I'll need to think about at different times.
Currently, Phase 1 has a list of tasks for preparing curriculum, fundraising for travel expenses of Aniee and Eamon, and books I'd like to read before I leave for India. This bibliography gets longer by the minute. The books are selected for a variety of reasons: 1) they may enrich my understanding of the area (helpful for both, thesis and project), 2) they may be useful in curriculum for the high school students or for my team, 3) they may provide me a much-desired sense of inner-peace in the process of all this hard work.
Need to Read for India Bibliography as of July 11, 2008:
1. Violence & Compassion: Dialogues on Life Today. His Holiness the Dalai Lama w/ Jean-Claude Carriere
2. Soul Work: Anti-Racist Theologies in Dialogue. Ed. by Marjoirie Bowens-Wheatley and Nancy Palmer Jones
3. The Economics of Microfinance. Beatriz Armendariz and Honathan Morduch.
4. Gandhi: The Man, His People, and the Empire. Rajmohan Gandhi. (Signed by R. Gandhi himself!)
5. In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India. Edward Luce.
6. Religion Against the Self: An ethnography of Tamil Rituals. Isabelle Nabokov.
7. The Encounter Never Ends: A Return to the Field of Tamil Rituals. Isabelle Clark-Deces
8. Selections from Sadhana: The Realisation of Life. Rabindranath Tagore
9. Participant Observation. James Spradley
10. Interviewing. James Spradley.
Certain books I've read that I'll be using (as a framework to think from, thesis material, curriculum, or inspiration!):
1. Creating a World Without Poverty. Muhammad Yunus.
2. Banker to the Poor. Muhammad Yunus. (This one is "required" reading for all people working on this project with me.)
3. Just Peacemaking. Glen Stassen.
4. Everybody Loves a Good Drought. P. Sainath
5. Rules for Radicals. Saul Alinsky.
6. What is Activist Research? Article by Charles R. Hale
7. The Interpretation of Cultures. Selected essays by Clifford Geertz
Films:
1. Born Into Brothels. Directed by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski
I'm leaving the "office" now to meet with Aniee Sarkissian, an assistant to Phase 1 who has been doing extensive fundraising today for her trip. We will be discussing her activities and checking in on her curriculum development. She will be running a workshop at the leadership camp that speaks specifically to the intersection between income/inequality and access to health care-- essentially a medical anthropology workshop! This is exciting: we will be able to talk about the truly revolutionary work of Dr. Paul Farmer, a medical activist who's work I was introduced to during my stay in India last year.
More to come!
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