Wednesday 21 September 2011

Home Learning Centre, Gujarat

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a bit rubbish at regular blog posts, however a project came to my attention recently by way of visitors to my studio, and I thought it really was worth a mention.

Gautam and Krutika Patel visited my studio back in August. Here is photo of Krutika and I, where I am looking slightly sheepish as usual! (Posing for photographs isn't one of my strong points).

Gautam and Krutika used to live in the Manchester area but have now returned to Gujarat in India where they have set up the Home Learning initiative and are helping children from the most deprived areas to read and write.

This recent newspaper article gives a great overview of their project and some wonderful photos of the work they are doing can be found on their flickr page.

I asked Gautam if they accept donations of books to help them along, and this was his reply...

We would happily welcome donations of books. One element of our initiative is to provide children with the 'least', an experience of the best learning - this has been supported wonderfully by dear family and friends who have sent to us high-quality books from the UK that we struggle to find in India. Access to high-quality books has been a challenge. These days we are directly in touch with the best publishers in India of Gujarati-language, Hindi-language and Bi-lingual (with English) books - and have a good selection of local books for the children. We also have a growing selection of high-quality children's books from the UK and USA, you may be familiar with the Oxford Reading Tree series - the children have loved these and their thoughtful design is amazing in building reading skills and passion. We would be delighted if you would like to contribute to the range of books for these children.

For anybody who would like to help, their address is,

Gautam & Krutika Patel
242, G-1 type
Sector 9
Gandhinagar 382009
Gujarat, India

So, well done the Patels! I hope it goes from strength to strength.

3 comments:

GautamPPatel said...

Dear Lily,
Thanks for your kind support and sharing of our Home Learning Initiative.

We shared with the children the small-size prints of your work and also showed them the blog you wrote and gave them print-outs to take home. They were very excited to understand and see the connections.

We also now have hung up the large print of your very beautiful painting of the butterflies swirling over the deep red background. It is placed at the bottom of our stairs - so is viewed regularly every time we head down the stairs.

Best wishes and we look forward to seeing more of your work later on.
Gautam & Krutika

GautamPPatel said...

Your paintings of butterflies are wonderfully inspiring. This Diwali, Krutika used a colourful butterfly theme for her welcoming 'Rangoli' design at the entrance of our home - you can see here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gautamjpatel/sets/72157627848497175/

Lily Greenwood said...

Fantastic - I love Krutika's design! I'm also really pleased that the children have enjoyed a little mention from across the world! I'll be sending a book donation just as soon as I can. Hope all is well in Gujarat.