Signing Off 2023 With The Gaon Postcard From Gaon Connection

The year had just begun and we at Gaon Connection were mighty excited as we were set to launch our long term project — Teacher Connection — to document stories of hundreds of thousands of teachers across the country, with a strong focus on rural India, who are silently shaping young lives and contributing towards nation building.

It was the new year and we were thrumming with energy to drive this project, which was launched on January 3, on social reformer and educator Savitribai Phule’s birth anniversary. And, we never looked back, since.

The Teacher Connection project has so far led to the documentation of 446 text articles (in English and Hindi), 94 video films, and over 170 podcast minutes of stories of educators who work in remote corners of the country, with minimum resources, but continue to fight all odds to impart education, the most powerful tool to transform society and better the lives of those belonging to the weaker and marginalised communities.

Teacher Connection by Gaon Connection

But why Teacher Connection, many wondered?

India has over 640,930 villages and almost each village has a primary school. That is why it comes as no surprise that India’s teaching workforce is amongst the largest in the world.

Nearly 9.7 million primary and secondary school teachers form the backbone of our education system, which has 1.5 million schools and 248 million students enrolled from Grade 1 to Grade 12.

Of the total schools in the country, 84 per cent are located in rural areas. And 69 per cent of our schools are run by various state governments that employ about 51 per cent of the teaching workforce.

But, despite their huge strength, very little is known about teachers and teaching in rural India. They educate, groom and influence their students to become upright citizens of our country. But we never see their faces or hear their voices.

Our Teacher Connection campaign grew out of this hunger to celebrate teachers every day — not just on Teacher’s Day. Teacher Connection is our effort to bring back to the Indian teacher the respect and position in society that they once had — the guru-shishya tradition is in our DNA, that is soaked in our culture and values and worldview.

Teacher Connection Magazine

Two months into our Teacher Connection project, we had stories of teachers coming in from forest villages of Panna in Madhya Pradesh, a teacher in remote village of Kargil (Ladakh), a community library in Lahaul & Spiti (Himachal Pradesh), a tribal school in Assam, and lots more.

These stories were both moving and inspiring. They needed a dedicated space and wider dissemination, which is how our monthly magazine, Teacher Connection, came into being in March this year.

DOWNLOAD TEACHER CONNECTION MAGAZINE HERE

The Teacher Connection magazine, which is brought out in both Hindi and English, is available for a free download from Gaon Connection’s website. Apart from stories of teachers, it has articles on innovation in rural education and free resources for the teaching community.

I feel proud that we brought Teacher Connection magazine like clockwork (1st of every month), and have tried to do better with every issue.

Come September and on Teacher’s Day, September 5, Gaon Connection released a one-of-its-kind publication on rural teachers and rural education.

Titled 100 Tales of Teachers Transforming Education in Rural India, this is also a free to download book where perhaps for the first time stories of grit, triumph and challenges of these ‘invisible’ teachers, have been compiled.

DOWNLOAD 100 Tales of Teachers Transforming Education in Rural India HERE.

The Changemakers Project: A National Registry by Gaon Connection

At Gaon Connection, our job is not limited to reporting stories alone. All our work has a single prism — impact. Our work focuses on trying to bring about a positive change in the lives of people and the society at large.

Gaon Connection’s The ChangeMakers Project is an effort in that direction. On Gandhi Jayanti this year, on October 2, we launched The ChangeMakers Project to build a national registry of changemakers in India.

Why this registry of changemakers?

Far away from the arclights, there are thousands of people who bring change every day, who we need to find, identify, celebrate, and help.

The Changemakers Project is an effort to document and create a robust registry of changemakers across India. Because our heroes are amongst us.

There are hundreds of thousand doers out there whose life mission is to help others. And they often work under extreme circumstances with next to no resources — financial or material.

Then, there is another set of people — the helpers — who have the resources and wish to help the doers but do not know how to reach them, or how to verify the impact of their work before supporting them.

At Gaon Connection, we have been building and nurturing connections for the past eleven years now. The Changemakers Project acts as a bridge between the doers and the helpers, and connects the both.

With a presence in 470 districts of the country —across every state — our team is creating a National Registry of Changemakers. By registering and logging into the national registry, members can search through the changemakers and reach out to them for help, whether it is in terms of financial resources, or time, or material donations (laptops, smartboards, free training, teach how to write a CSR application, etc).

As part of The Changemakers Project, we are also documenting audio stories, video films and text reportage of the change makers in our land.

READ ALL REPORTEGAGE UNDER THE CHANGEMAKERS PROJECT HERE

CONNECTION, For The Children

For the past 11 years, Gaon Connection has been building pathways between urban and rural India by strengthening the voice of those who live in villages through its reports.

It has also been informing their urban counterparts about why rural India matters. Almost all the resources that we consume in cities, be it food, water or sand to construct our buildings, come from the hinterland.

This year, we also decided to bring together the worlds of urban and rural children through a monthly magazine — Connection.

Gaon Connection’s bilingual monthly for the children — Connection — was launched on children’s day, last month, on November 14. Download it free from our website.

DOWNLOAD KIDS MAGAZINE CONNECTION HERE

Climate Connection: Joining The Dots

Climate change is the biggest challenge the world is facing today. There is no life form on this planet which is not affected by the changing climate, rising temperatures, erratic rainfall patterns and increasing natural disasters.

Rural India where two-thirds of the citizens of the country live has been facing the brunt of climate change as crop losses have multiplied and health burden is rising.

But Indian communities are a repository of ancient wisdom, be it in food habits or architecture, that, to some extent, can help address the challenges posed by climate change.

On December 2 when Gaon Connection turned 11, it launched another long term project Climate Connection where climate science meets traditional wisdom. As part of the project, we are documenting solution stories on climate change; and also building a repository of stories on traditional wisdom.

On December 2, Gaon Connection released Climate Connection Report 2023 which documents 75 stories of climate change from rural India. This is possibly the first time that a book has put together reports on the impact of climate change on various sectors of rural India.

FREE DOWNLOAD OF CLIMATE CONNECTION REPORT 2023 HERE.

2023 is drawing to an end. And as I look back at the year gone by, my heart swells with pride, and I am also humbled at the big and small achievements of Team Gaon Connection that not only initiated key projects in 2023 but also launched monthly magazines and published books with unique insights from rural India.

All our content and publications are available for a free download from Gaon Connection’s website. As we march ahead into 2024, we need your support to continue strengthening the voice of rural India through footwork journalism and piecing together exhaustive reports with insights from the lakhs of villages in the country.

Thank you, 2023! And welcome 2024!

Nidhi Jamwal is Managing Editor of Gaon Connection.