Post-Interviews

This week we finished taking the pictures, and after getting them developed, it was time for the post-interviews. When I went in this week, the two male participants were out of town, and thus could not be a part of the post-interview process. The rest of us went upstairs in the school where there is a large empty space looking over Rasoolpura. I hadn’t looked at the pictures myself, so I was just as excited as the children when I opened the big bag of photos. I gave everyone their respective photos, and asked them if they could write a few sentences on the back of the ones they thought were meaningful. The main questions discussed were:

1. What do you SEE here?
2. What is REALLY happening?
3. How does this RELATE to your life in Rasoolpura?
4. WHY does this problem exist?
5. What can we DO about it?
   

They didn’t have to answer every question, but rather they served to open up our minds to the various factors that I would like to show through this project. The older kids had no problem with this task, but the younger ones seemed to have some difficulty translating their words into writing. When I asked them, however, all of them had wonderful insight into each and every picture they took, so instead of writing it out, we decided that it would be easier to videotape participants as they spoke. I was shocked at the quality and depth with which some of these pictures were taken. One of the interviews I remember most was when we were looking at a picture of boys playing marbles outside. I asked Sandhya why she took that particular picture, and she said, “They don’t have an interest in going to school, so they skip and play silly games.” I then asked her, “Well, why don’t you think they are interested?” She said, “I don’t know I mean school is free, and the government is even giving everyone free lunch, but I guess if teachers, instead of hitting students for not studying, taught in more interesting ways, like with games, they would go.” I became an interviewer without even knowing it. It wasn’t as though I was prodding them for a certain answer, but they were questions that came to me as they were speaking. After each video, I played them back on my laptop, and the kids had a blast laughing at what each other had to say. I also interviewed the teachers, Ms. Lalitha and Mr. Shankar, about their view on the problems facing Rasoolpura and ways to remedy the situation. The girls also wanted me to tape them dancing and singing, and they were actually pretty good. All the videos are in Telugu, so I’m dreading having to add captions to all of them.

A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words?

This week we started the main part of the photovoice project. Before I begin my story for this week I will give you some background information.

First, I need to give some more information on the teachers:
Mr. Shankar: He is a teacher at the school who also serves as a liaison between Mahita and the Smile Foundation, which is a national nonprofit that strives to promote universal education among children from underprivileged backgrounds. Smile partners with various non-profits around the nation to sponsor education and health awareness programs such as the Cambridge School.
Ms. Lalitha: She has been working with Mahita and the Cambridge School for over seven years. She is also a resident of the slum, and knows the area better than anyone else.

Second, I must explain that the eight kids whom I had selected last week did not all show up this week, so I had to make do with those who were there. Especially since it is summer break, the students come as they please to the school and don't really have regular attendance. Therefore, for the second time I went through and explained my project. However, this time I allowed those students whom I had selected last week to lead the discussion and help the new participants understand the goals of the research. We spent the beginning of the week discussing the ethics of photography, and the kinds of pictures that we are allowed to take as researchers. The children were very insistent that they understood, so after I explained to them how to use the Kodak cameras, we split up into two groups. This week, a girl named Sandhya joined my group of researchers. Although a little older than the rest (she is in the 10th grade), she has become one of the most helpful people for this project. So, when we split off into two groups to take pictures, I chose Sandhya to lead one group of four, and I led the other three participants with the teachers.

My story:
My group consisted of both of the teachers and three of the child participants. We started walking down the lanes of Rasoolpura, which I found out is a large area split into many different "basthis," or small neighborhoods. Each of these basthis is distinctly different in terms of racial and religious identity, but taken as a whole, Rasoolpura is a diverse community. So, as we started walking, the kids ran about taking pictures of what they found interesting, but it didn't take long for me to realize that my "ethics" speech had gone through one ear and out the other for them. They started taking pictures of everything and everyone, so the teachers and I kept reminding them that they must first ask permission before taking pictures. It didn't seem like much of a problem at first. In fact, before we knew it there was a horde of people following us around because they thought we were reporters from TV9, a local news channel.

Halfway through the day, a little boy ran up to me and said, "Sister, the men over there are yelling at Mr. Shankar." So, I went over and saw that there was a verbal argument between Mr. Shankar and a group of very, very big men. They men were saying that some girl took a picture of them and ran away, and they demanded that we bring the girl to them or that something bad would happen. Soon, a mob of 20-30 people surrounded us, demanding what was wrong, and with everyone yelling in Hindi, I could only understand certain phrases, which happened to be "murder", "bits and pieces" and "who do you think we are?" Then, one of the men began to push around Mr. Shankar, tapping him “slightly” on the back of the neck. Another man snatched the cameras from the kids. Amid this confusion and yelling, I started crying. My crying calmed everyone a little and some of the women held my hand and told me that everything was alright and took me inside their house. Inside the house, the women offered me water, which I was hesitant to drink, but I drank it anyway so as to not disrespect them further. One of the older women said, “Child, why are you crying? Do you think we would let anything happen to you?”

This is when Ms. Lalitha came to the rescue. She was a little farther away when this all started, but she entered the chaos and swiftly explained the project to the residents. She said, "These kids are doing a project for school. This girl is from America, she can't speak Hindi that well, so screaming at her will do you no good. They are simply taking pictures of problems within our neighborhood, so hopefully someone can fix them. You all complain that nobody does anything about the issues here, and now someone is trying to help, and you made her cry." It was actually pretty funny because Ms Lalitha is about 5 ft tall and she took on a whole mob of towering men. After things calmed down, one of the men said, "Recently, one of our people was murdered and their body was cut into bits and pieces and delivered to us in a bag. So, when you just come and take pictures, we were scared as to what happened." We asked them how recent this was, and the man said "Some 20 to 25 years ago."

After this when everyone finally understood that we were all just innocent school children, the men came up to me and apologized, and the eldest man gave me some great advice. He said, "What you are doing is great, in fact, if you had told us first about this project and why you are taking pictures, we would let you take a hundred even a thousand pictures, but you just need to tell us clearly. Anyways, you need to be strong. There is no need to cry when you know you aren't doing anything wrong." It was some of the best advice that I have ever received. They gave us back our cameras, and insisted that we take pictures of them, so they pulled out their combs and starting brushing their hair and posed in front of a tree (Not the kind of picture we wanted for our reserach, but we let it slide). This argument had lasted about an hour or so, so we were all tired by the time it finished and went back to the school to wait for the other group. The other group strolled in smiling an hour later and said, "Oh, back so early?"

Overall, I learned a lot this week. I guess I have been pretty sheltered my whole life, so I was kind of naive about what to expect when I decided to research in the "slums."I realized that the word "slum" is not some geographically isolated term, but rather a conglomeration of the social, religious and racial complexities that exist in an overcrowded and under recognized area. Many of the residents of Rasoolpura are uneducated, so throwing foreign things upon them can become overwhelming. Furthermore, I understood the importance of communication and more importantly the importance of effective communication: a communication that needs to be altered depending on the various factors that define the recipient, such as age, gender, class and vernacular.

Secondly, a lot of the time in non profit and service projects, a group of wealthy, educated individuals tries to go into “needy” areas in order to “fix” something. However, these individuals are completely removed from the dynamics of the situation that they are in fact trying to fix. That is why I commend Mahita for selecting a woman from Rasoolpura to teach at the local school. Ms. Lalitha helped greatly in this situation in not only serving as a liaison for both sides, but also in knowing who she was dealing with. Everyone knows everyone to some level in Rasoolpura, no matter what bhasthi you live in. In fact, Ms. Lalitha walks through this neighborhood everyday on her way to school, so utilizing relationships such as these are vital when trying to initiate social change. The wisdom and experience of community members should never be dismissed when creating community based partnerships.

I also learned the importance of having a positive mindset in new situations. Combined with the fears that my family instilled in me with every email and phone call, I was honestly pretty scared when I got to Rasoolpura, especially when I had to leave the school and walk around. Thus, as soon as this dispute escalated, I immediately started to cry because I had gone into the situation with a negative attitude. However, after it all, I realized that they were all normal people, probably more normal than me. In fact, if someone ran into my dorm at UNC, took a picture, and ran away, I don’t even know how I would react.

A Weekend in the Village

This past weekend, the family that I am staying with here in Hyderabad had to attend a wedding in a small town called Eluru and took me along with them. I noticed the differences between Hyderabad and Eluru right away. The temperature was a lot warmer, and stickier, and there were a lot more bugs. I had 24 hour electricity in Hyderabad, but here they had a weekly schedule of when they would have electricity. However putting all of this aside, the people of the village didn't let me feel like an outsider at all. I was taken in as "part of the family," and I became an integral part of all the preparations for the wedding. A traditional South Indian wedding lasts several days, and there are various rituals that take place at both the bride and grooms' houses. I was staying with the bride's family, so I was part of various events such as the henna, bindi, and bride-making ceremonies. The most interesting part was the bindi ceremony where a procession band is hired and all the ladies on the bride's side of the family go around to every house in the village to invite them to the wedding. I remember the last Indian wedding I went to in India was very similar to those in the United States: a huge hotel, lots of guests, and food. However, this wedding was very different in that everyone in the town was somehow involved with the wedding. It wasn' t just a family celebration, it was a village-wide festivity.

While I was there, I started to think about what the children at the Cambridge school had said about the vast differences between rural and city life. I thought it would be interesting if I could find a way to incorporate this issue of migration into my project by comparing urban poverty to rural poverty. Since I didn’t really have a school or anything there where I could recruit children, I asked Buddi, a maid at the house we were staying at, if she would be willing to participate. I explained the concept of my project, and how I thought it would be interesting to compare the health related problems and culture of the village to the city. Since I hadn’t brought any disposable cameras with me on the trip, I went around town with her and let her use my digital camera to take pictures.

Here are some of the pictures that Buddi took of the wedding festivities/culture and also health implications in Eluru:

The band for the bindi ceremony:

Women washing dishes in the local dam:

Several men sitting on a tractor going to town:
The village butcher shop:

Pre-Photovoice Interviews

After selecting the participants for my project, I had an individual interview with all the children followed by a group discussion. I also further explained the purpose of photo voice, highlighting that this was not like regular school where there was a certain“right” or “wrong” answer. The questions I asked the particpants were fairly broad so that they could speak as much or little as they wanted.

What is education to you?
What problems do you see in Rasoolpura that you want to see fixed?
What are some solutions?

Many of the responses were similar, and the children opened up far more than I had expected. Some of the main problems they saw were concerned with sanity and general well-being. Basic necessities such as continuous power and fresh water, things that we don’t usually think about in America, are the main problems in Rasoolpura. The students complained about having power for only several hours a day and that they had to buy clean water for 20 rupees a barrel every week. Twenty rupees is less than 50 cents; however, for many of the residents of Rasoolpura, it is a significant amount of their weekly paycheck. They also talked about corruption, in that their parents have to pay extra in order to receive services that should be free. For example, they have to pay extra in order to get their clean water delivered and garbage removed. Thus, instead of paying all these extraneous fees, many residents let the garbage pile up in the neighborhood, polluting the water in the ponds. This same water is then used to wash clothes, dishes, and sometimes even for cooking when the weekly clean water runs out. Therefore, they said that education is not a priority amidst all these problems that their families face daily. In order to pay for all these facilities, the parents and even some of the children have to work multiple jobs.

One of the students brought up an interesting point about migration and its implications on poverty. The student talked about how many of the residents of Rasoolpura moved to the city of Hyderabad from villages. A reolcation which resulted in extreme changes in lifestyle, where people who could at least farm their own food could no longer do so in the city.

"There are no agricultural jobs in the city, so many of the families have to do whatever job they are given, most of which are dirty and don't give much money. My mom works as a house-maid and my father works in a steel factory nearby. If I am educated, I can get a better job"

When I asked them what types of education they wanted to research, all of them wanted to research both health-related problems and the cultural/social aspects of Rasoolpura. Therefore, instead of splitting the group into two, we decided that each person would take half of their pictures on health-related issues and half on the culture of Rasoolpura.

Introductions

Hello Hyderabad!

This week, after arriving in Hyderabad, I went to the Mahita office, which is located about 10 km from where I am staying. Once there, I met with the director of Mahita, Mr. Ramesh Reddy, and the program supervisor, Mr. Swarup. I found out that Mahita has four slum education programs in Andhra Pradesh, three of them in predominantly Hindi/Urdu speaking areas. Since I am fluent in Telugu more so than Hindi, we decided that the best location for my project would be in the Rasoolpura slum in Begampet. The Rasoolpura slum is one of the largest slums in Andhra Pradesh, with many of its residents in extreme poverty, which the Worldbank defines as living as less than $1 a day. In Rasoolpura, Mahita sustains a Community Based Learning Center (CBLC) for children called the Cambridge School. The Cambridge School is a tutoring program during the regular school year, but since it is currently summer break, it serves as a remediation program to help the children have a more successful transition when they go back to school in July.

I went with Mr. Swarup to Rasoolpura where I met the educators and students of the Cambridge School. When we drove up to Rasoolpura, the asphalt roads of the Hyderbad highway changed into dirt roads, and the apartments and high rises became makeshift shacks that lined the streets. When we finally arrived at the school, we were greeted by around 20 children of various ages and three teachers, Shankar, Lalitha and Jessica.

The school is a moderate sized classroom located in a small building. There are various teaching tools around the classroom including a globe, posters of the human anatomy, and a chemistry set. Many of which seem beyond the age of the students, who are around 8-14 years old.

Mr. Swarup introduced me to everyone and gave a basic description of my project. The school runs everyday from 9am-1pm, and as it was already 1:30 by the time all the introductions finished, so I decided to come back the next day to further explain my project.

The next day, I went to the school by myself and I explained my project to the children, but since I could only accommodate 6-7 kids for my project, I had to create a selection process to pick from the pool of 20 students. I decided that after I explained my project, interested students could raise their hands. Everyone ended up raising their hand. Since that idea didn’t work out, I decided to ask questions about what exactly they would take pictures of and why they thought it was important. After this, the teachers helped me select eight of the most vocal students.

The First Snapshot...

This summer, I would like to explore poverty and its implications on various types of education through an international perspective. I hope to understand these issues through a photojournalism project in collaboration with a slum education program, Mahita, and slum children in Andhra Pradesh, India.

The methodology used in this project is Photovoice, which was developed by Professor Caroline Wang at the University Of Michigan School Of Public Health (Wang et al. 1998). One of the innovative aspects of Photovoice is that it entrusts cameras to people at the grassroots level whose voices frequently go unheard and whose perspectives are often disregarded. Children in general are usually not given opportunities to contribute to decisions that affect their lives, but this project hopes to establish that children do have a voice and can be vital partners in decision-making.

There are several goals involved with this research. The first is to understand the types of social education that shape the lives of slum children in Hyderabad through photojournalism. The various types of education that will be highlighted through this project are:

• Health: general hygiene, AIDS/HIV prevention, pregnancy
• Social: cultural and religious education
• Traditional: Institutionalized pubic school education (English, Math, Science etc.)

The second goal of this project is to analyze the photos and, in partnering with Mahita’s coordinators and educators, establish ways of incorporating the lifestyle of the children into the traditional teaching curriculum of the SMILE schools.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you will continue to follow me on my journey this summer!