Appeal to Join Protest for Bandhyali School

This is a request to join protest at ANHAD ..

Dear friends,

This is an SOS on behalf of the 300 children of Rajasthan living near Jaipur belonging to extremely poor families of Muslim, Mali and Gujar communities, who would be losing their Constitutional Right to Education if The Jaipur Development Authority(JDA) is allowed to demolish their 13 year old upper primary school called BANDHIYALI SCHOOL to make way for a commercial and profit making educational shop called MAHIMA SHIKSHA SAMITI.

In 1993 villagers from Kho Nagoria and Bandhiyal identified a piece of community land on which they built up this school with the help of DIGANTAR , a Jaipur based organization , well known for its innovations in Educational philosophy and class room practices . Monetary support came from the MHRD, Government of India.

The JDA has issued a notice to Digantar asking it to vacate the 3 Bigha land on which Bandhiyali School stands as i t was secured by it for MAHIMA Shiksha Samiti. Fortunately for the children of the school , Rajasthan High Court has stayed the eviction order till 19 December. But it is important that all of us who believe in free primary education as an unalienable right of every child need to speak up loudly for Bandhiyali School as an institution which provide free education , including books and stationarynto the children of extremely poor background cannot be sacrificed in favour of a profit making enterprise. BANDHIYALI has also emerged as a model for all education students and pedagogues who are for a participatory approach towards education and who are striving to promote education practices based on group learning and cooperation through which children and teachers create delightful knowledge. Teacher educators have also been using BANDHIYALI as their laboratory all these years.

We are holding a protest meet on 20 December, 2005( TUESDAY)at 4.30pm at ANHAD premises( 4, Windsor Place, Ashoka Road, Opp. Hotel SHANGRILA) . This is to request you to join this protest and circulate this notice widely to mobilize wider support for the BANDHIYALI SCHOOL.

Kindly confirm your participation,
Anil Chaudhary
Apoorvanand
Dipta Bhog
Mukul Priyadarshini
Purushottam Agrawal
Shalini Advani
ON Behalf of EDUCATION DISCUSSION \nGROUP