Confused in Bangalore by Wyatte

So far this week, working with the Indian delegates has been a very positive experenice. Yesterday at SKID, we spent about an hour and half with 7 to 10 standard (12 to 18 years old). It was the first time we had a large chunk of time interacting with students and not just visiting the schools.

The previous day, we split up into two groups to come up with various activities and an empowerment workshop. For example, my group decided to use a flower as a representation of yourself and using it as an analogy for achieving your dream. We had each student say their name and what their dream was. Some wanted to become teachers or engineers while others wanted to graduate school or even help the Deaf.

We explained how flowers come in all kinds of different shapes and sizes but they're all beautiful in their own way. We tried to compare the growing and nurturing of the flower to the students themselves with their family and education being the equalivalent of water and sun.

I was disappointed with how the workshop progressed because we had very limited time and it was so hard to be on the same page with the students that we ended up just playing games that we originally intended for later. It was really nice to see the smiles on the students' faces but I couldn't help but feel "empty" for lack of a better word because what will they have gained from our time there other than a break from class for a few hours and a positive impression of Americans? The whole purpose of empowerment was completely lost and I felt like the students were cheated out of something really worthwhile.

This leads to my next point... It seems like the whole concept of empowerment and Deaf rights is not fully understood by our Indian delegates and coordinators. Chandramouli, one of the coordinators who I like a lot and geninuely cares about doing something to immprove everything here, spoke after the students left and essentially said that we gave the students something positive to remember and good entertainment.

That really hit me, I do not think the whole purpose of why we are here is understood by even the coordinators. If the coordinators don't fully understand the concept of empowerment, how can we expect school students to?

While we were playing games, one was Human Chain which basically consisted of people holding hands but knotting them together and then trying to get out of the tangle of arms to form one big circle. The catch is that you can't let go and you need to go over, under and around people. The dynamics were interesting as right from the beginning boys stood on one side and girls on the other.

Once we finally got them to mix it up, they wouldn't hold hands which defeated the entire point of the game. After several false starts, they finally acquiesed and seemed to really enjoy themselves. We had split up the 30+ students into two groups and the difference was startling. One was barely communicating and trying to solve it so fast that they ended up just getting more tangled. The other was a bit more slow and communicated more effectively, eventually getting out of the tangle.

I thought it was a good representation of the two sides of India that we've seen so far. Its hard to remember that India is a young country, having achieved independence only 60O years ago and before the British, they weren't even unified as a country but rather many separate kingdoms.

This is why the challenge of creating one Indian sign language is so daunting and a lot of people resist changing their language anyway - which I can't really blame them for but considering the extreme conditions here and amount of people, I think the only way Indian Deaf will really be able to exert change on a nationwide scale would be with the unifying force of having one language to communicate in. This doesn't even include the fact that the various Deaf leaders here tend to fight among themselves and not work together, it s very fustrating and there is no easy solution.
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