Educators Retreat: Ahmedabad

Every month, movedbylove volunteers host a 3-day experiential service retreat on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, Gujarat. To deepen the participant's experience of generosity, build community amongst each other, and reflect on subtle values embedded in acts of giving. This retreat was going to be on "Reimagining Education".  Nabin, Prevendra and Umanga from Kehi Garoun joined the retreat.

Summary:
The experience was so inspiring that Kehi Garoun held a similar retreat on inside-out change as soon as their team got back to Nepal. 

Highlights:
The retreat started with simple introduction of all the participants and the volunteers. All shared their moments of joy in education. There were break out sessions on compassion quotient.  We visited  Sewa Cafe, an experiment in giving, and listened to Nemo's songs. 

On the second day, we listened to experiences in informal education by Chetanya Bhai who concluded with the merit of replacing external examinations by 360 degree evaluation (by self, peers, parents and teachers).  On the third day, we heard from Nipun Mehta about the movement towards compassion and from Jayanti Ravi on her personal journeys that served as the foundation for implementation of large scale change in Gurjrat's education program. The final day of the retreat was spiritual in nature, and all participants were palpably moved by the end of it. 

Annex: Kehi Garoun team stayed for an extra day to visit some interesting works in educaiton.  Our visit to the Riverside International School led us to integrate their "design for change" curriculum into our own Dignity Circle program.  and also the "i can " challenge for the schools.  We also heard about their salient lessons from Gandhian education from the Registrar of Ganghi Vidyapith.