Isai Ragam: changing village lives

Auroville Today: Did you already have a background in village development before you came to Auroville?

Brigitte: No. My parents had four children and the last one was born with a disability. Maybe this was a factor because in 2002 I began working for an NGO in the Netherlands that provided care for people with disabilities. It was in the Netherlands that I first met Ivar Jenten, an Aurovilian who had been working for many years with children in the villages neighbouring Auroville. He founded Isai Ambalam school and, with the help of other Aurovilians, he set up night schools in the villages. He also founded Isai Maiyam Trust which, along with an art school and boys’ and girls’ home, includes a school in Pondicherry offering music, dance and computer lessons for differently-abled children. Like him, I also had a music background so we had common interests. He invited me to visit, but India sounded way too scary to me!

So what changed your mind about coming here?

I had some friends who visited, and they all came back alive! So in 2005 I brought some people from the Netherlands to do a music programme in a village near Auroville. After that, I came back every year until 2010 when I decided to stay because I had set up a music band in 2009 and a dance group in one of the villages, and I wanted this to continue.  

So you didn’t come primarily for Auroville?

No, it happened gradually. I had begun teaching music in Isai Ambalam school, but when Ivar started reading Sri Aurobindo to me I began to be drawn in.

At the age of 14, I became very interested in spiritual things and was reading many books on the topic, but I had never come across Sri Aurobindo before.

In 2013 I finally became an Aurovilian: I had to do my Newcomer period twice because the Entry Group people didn’t like the fact that in addition to my Auroville work, I was also involved in an outside project in Pondicherry. Later, in addition to my work in the villages, I taught English to older students at an after-school in Kuilapalayam through Auromitra Trust, I was briefly involved in the Martuvam project in 2009 and 2010 and I worked two afternoons a week at Matrimandir after 2013.

At the time of Covid, Ivar and I realised that many village kids were missing out on their education as the schools had closed. So we started providing them with informal English and Maths classes in their homes. In 2021 we decided to formalise the activities by establishing a new unit under Auromitra Trust: it is called ‘Isai Ragam’ meaning ‘melody of music’.

Today, Isai Ragam reaches around 120 children and youth, aged six to twenty-three, from villages and Dalit settlements in the region. We meet in the houses of people who know Ivar well – some had been his students in the past – and now we have seven locations in the surrounding villages, six of which are in Dalit colonies. We meet every evening from 6 to 8pm on weekdays and have full day programmes on weekends. We also organise occasional tours.

We welcome all kids, but many of them are under-privileged, from homes affected by poverty, fractured families, or alcohol abuse, where educational and emotional support is scarce. So, in addition to the educational activities, we provide them with a sense of belonging and safety: some don’t want to leave at the end of the evening session! For many of these children, Isai Ragam is the first place they have felt truly supported.

What kind of activities do you provide?

In every house we provide tutoring in conversational English and Maths, help with their school homework and games. We also like to provide a holistic programme which includes sports, computer studies, instrumental training (keyboard, violin, guitar), Bharatanatyam and folk dance for girls, and street dance for boys. During the summer holidays we give handicraft training, and in one centre in Kottakarai colony, the children have received meditation classes from an Aurovilian.

However, what is provided in each house varies according to the specialty of the teacher and the location. The teachers are all people we have known for some time who have a higher educational qualification: one is a graduate in computer studies, another has a master’s degree in maths, another a master’s in English, so their programmes tend to emphasise these specialties. Also, some houses don’t have a sports field nearby so the kids there can’t do sports, while others may not be able to provide music and dance lessons. Whatever is possible in that area we do. At the moment we are teaching Bharatanatyam dance and folk dance at three locations and violin, keyboard and melodica and guitar at another three.

Have you seen big changes in the children since they began attending these centres?

Yes. Many of these children are very clever – no different from children anywhere else – but very often they don’t get a chance to develop their abilities. For example, quite often talented girls are forced into early marriage which deprives them of the chance to do higher studies. When they get that chance, the results are sometimes extraordinary. One of our ex-students who came from a very poor family where her mother couldn’t even tell the time is doing a PhD in Maths, while another is studying piano and violin at a very high level: she astonished us because without formal training she could play complex pieces by Bach and Beethoven entirely by ear. Others are following professional courses in Bharatanatyam, nursing and business studies. We help each child discover and nurture their talents.

But surely pursuing these higher studies is expensive, and presumably many of the parents cannot afford the cost.

True. We try to financially support a few to pursue higher studies but our funds are limited.

So how is Isai Ragam funded?

We are almost entirely dependent on Ivar’s pension to keep running: 90% of the funds come from him. We also get small amounts from supporters in Holland, and AVI USA has provided us with funding in their once a year ‘double up’ funding initiative. However, like many other units in Auroville we are finding it difficult to access donations once they arrive in Auroville.

Your financial base is fragile. Are you optimistic that the programme will continue in the future?

If we are not getting Ivar’s pension any more, then we may have to stop, but I’m not going to worry about that because it’s no use. I think only of how we can improve what we are providing now. For example, we would like to create more playgrounds for the kids (we have created two so far with help from donors and AVI Netherlands and AVI USA) and to buy more second-hand laptops so as to enable computer classes in all locations. In order to teach music to larger groups of children we also need more musical instruments, like guitars, bongos, drums and melodicas.

Meanwhile I love what I am doing. It is so varied that there’s never a dull moment!