Category: WIL-India

I've written several posts about community visits taken on our WIL-India trip - now I'm going to look more critically at these and offer some reflections. Thankfully we also had the opportunity to discuss our thoughts with the group also, so this is informed as well by my learning from other participants.  It was awkward … Continue reading Community engagement ? →

The last of our community visits were to tribal villages around Udaipur. These were facilitated by the NGO Wells for India. The main theme of Wells for India is about getting communities mobilized to solve and fund their own projects.  In the first village we visited, we met with farmers who had decided efficient and judicious ways … Continue reading Tribal village visits in Rajasthan →

A friend of Swaraj's developed a water tour of Udaipur City. He generally runs tours, but adapted this one to focus on water. Really I'm starting to think I should request water tours everywhere I go, it's just so fascinating! Udaipur is known as the city of lakes. Before the city was developed, which was … Continue reading More water tours →

Last week we visited the community of Adesar in Gujarat to see how salt pan workers live. The local word for making salt is "bhor". In this area, it involves extracting briney groundwater (which is the norm there) and letting the water evaporate out in large "pools" that were built by creating earth walls. Water … Continue reading Making salt in the desert →

We spent the last 4 days of WIL-India at Swaraj University, the global centre for unlearning. This is a rural centre, where "students" live communally in dorms and keep up the maintenance of the centre. The land is farmed and there is livestock. It's a beautiful and peaceful area, perfect for deep exploration and learning.  … Continue reading Unlearning and Appreciation  →