It was a great opportunity for me to travel to Europe to gain knowledge and comprehend Ekta Parishad from a distance as well as to upgrade my awareness about Ekta Parishad activities. While travelling in Europe I learned that there are a lot of people showing interest in the work of Ekta Parishad and looking at EP as a magnificent model to change the present situation of the world. During this three month travel time, I got an opportunity to meet many old and new friends of Ekta Parishad from Switzerland, France, Belgium and Germany.
In the first part of my stopover, most of the time I was in Switzerland. Till the end of January I was in the city of Bern (the federal capital of Switzerland) where CESCI foundation was organizing the India Forum program for three weeks in support to JS 2012 promotion. It was an exhibition with rice called ‘All The People In All The World’ along with other particular programs like podium discussions on food security, Janadesh video shows, an introduction to Ekta Parishad and CESCI, meeting with school children, general discussions, and Indian dance etc. About 1700 people visited this Indian forum rice show program. Through this India forum, there was a good opportunity for us to meet and talk with many people about Ekta Parishad and JS 2012.
While I was in Bern I had a brief discussion with Ms. Iyvonne of Solifunds about their financial support to the EP Kerala activities and in general Ekta Parishad, Janadesh 2007 and our future action JS 2012. Based on this discussion she has agreed to support a small action (about the same amount like last year) in any part of India in support to Janasathyagraha for the 2011-2012 year.
Similarly I also had a small meeting with the friends from Swiss Aid while we were at the podium discussion at the India forum program. Swiss Aid is also interested to support EP programs in the direction to JS 2012 action.
Second part of my main program was visiting some French organisations in the cities of Grenoble, Lyon and Chambery. In these cities EP is relatively popular and most of the people know very well Ekta Parishad and Rajaji. Even in far away villages, I have seen people who knew Rajaji and are inspired by the work of EP. The French organisations I visited were trying to get some inputs from Ekta Parishad to organise foot marches in France on the issue of homeless people in France. They have many social centres there to help the homeless people supported by the city government. But the social groups are demanding the Govt to change their housing policies to benefit the needy people and secure the habitation. Mr. Adrian will come to India to learn about the youth camp and mobilization from Ekta Parishad and he is already in communication with Elodi in this regard. Mr. Manu Bodiner is a good friend of Rajaji and he was coordinating the Gandhi tour program in the October 2009 at the cities of Grenoble, Lyon and Chambery etc. He is interested to support EP and its activities.
The last two weeks of February I came again to Switzerland. During these weeks I visited many friends and small groups who are already part of our EP family. I can see the interest and enthusiasm of the people here and they strongly believe that EP can do something very great to change the situation of the poor people and secure the food security in India and become a model to the world to change. Towards this end they see the importance of each and every action and program. For example, in support of JS 2012 and future action programs of EP, setting up a media centre in India is something very important in the international context. In this connection they are trying to find very good quality volunteers like Boris to help and to create a national-international communication platform through media work. They have a long list of volunteers in their file to work for the development of media centre in India in support to JS 2012.
Teachers like Eva Sutter and her friends are very much interested to support Ekta Parishad. In support of Janadesh, their school Bullach Kantons Schule organised a big foot print action and raised some money to support our action. Even after two years of Janadesh, they are still keeping the information in their notice board about Janadesh and its results. It is so interesting to see such beautiful things here far away from India. The teachers are highly concerned and they want to continue their support to Ekta Parishad.
Similarly teachers from the Zurich International School wanted to support Ekta Parishad and its programs. They came to know EP through the film by Hans Jurg. Maggie organised a meeting with some of the teachers and the students of this school. The school may organise some events to raise some money to support JS 2012 action programs.
Franziska of Reck Film Company wanted to make a film on EP. In this regard we had a discussion with their film company along with Kude. They wanted to visit India and to meet people from the villages who have benefited of EP intervention. Mr. Christoph Staub may visit to India in June 2010 and would like to visit Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa, Chattisgarh, Tamilnadu and Kerala in this connection.
Mr. Karl Saurer, the filmmaker, wants to continue his film production work with Mr. Gautham of Chennai on the theme of non-violent action.
CESCI friends (Barbara, her husband Urs, Andrea Herold, Margrit Buchi, etc) from St. Gallen organized a wonderful meeting with a group of about 50 people. Mr. Bruno the co-architect of CESCI building was also there in the meeting. It was so nice to see such good friends of Maja and their support to our good work. The Tamil and Swiss friends came together and cooked a wonderful dinner for the meeting and have collected some money to support JS 2012.
In support of promoting Tamil and Swiss peoples’ integration in Switzerland, Kude is planning a theatre production with the children of his theatre company called Purpur. In connection with this production we had a meeting with a small group of theatre personalities. Theatre artist Mr. Shanmugaraja from Tamilnadu, may be invited to Switzerland to reproduce the play like Chippichung (CESCI village children’s play) with Swiss Tamil children’s.
Para theatre is another theatre form that performed with the participation of the audience. It is a way of story telling (maybe for us to talk about the problems of the world) with the audience. The performance will happen the whole night or throughout the day like a casual life. We may have to train our people during the theatre festival programs to enhance their knowledge of such theatre activities.
Basel carnival was another major attraction for me and it makes me to think to make use of our padayatras partially with this kind of carnival style. When we organize such huge rallies, these kind of carnival costumes and colours may give us media attraction and we can make use of this as an opportunity to imitate the politician’s false promises and the real people’s problems.
Sarah Hammerli is a student from Thune and she got interested in Ekta Parishad through one of her family friends called Mrs.Ingrid. As part of her studies she has decided to do her MATHURA on the topic of CESCI and EP relations for social change. She has collected a lots of materials and made many data collection forms at the Indian forum at Bern. She may become a good contact for EP Europe in future.
In March I traveled to Belgium and Germany to meet more people in those countries to talk about our work in India. In Belgium Jacques Vellut took me in to cities like Bruxels, Louve de nouve, Namur and Liege. There I got opportunity to meet many interesting alternative groups like slow food groups, slow travel groups, simplicity living groups, and many wonderful personalities. One day, I had an opportunity to share a dais with the great writer and the ex Iranian minister Mr. Majid Rehnama (who wrote the book –power of poor) and Mr. Thierry G Verhelst, writer (No Life without Roots) in a podium discussion about poverty. I can see that Mr. Jacques Vellut and his friends are spending lots of their time and energy to support Ekta Parishad and its activities. Mr. Alan, Ms. Emiline, Ms. Alina, Mr. Dominique, and there are many other friends are very much interested to come to India and participate in the programs with EP. Ms. Daniele from alternative voyage is an interested woman to collaborate with EP to organize trips to the Indian villages to benefit the villagers directly and create connections with the village community. She is doing this type of program with South American countries for the last 10 years. Along with alternative travel they are trying to preserve the local traditional artisan skills and knowledge of the local community. There is Peace University in Namur, where Mr. Luc (who visited CESCI in February this year with a small Belgium team) has some connections. There is a possibility to connect IGINP project with this Namur peace university and people here badly needed the philosophy of non-violence in their daily life.
From Belgium I came to Cologne, Germany. Dr. Julius Reubke and Dr. Susanne Reubke was my host there; they have created a supporting group in Germany called friends of Ekta Parishad. Dr. Julius Reubke has just arrived from Thailand, therefore he didn’t have much time to call or organise various meetings. Here I got some time to really interact with Dr. Julius Reubke and understand their expectations from Ekta Parishad to the world. He is in a process of writing one more book about the work of Ekta Parishad. We were discussing the different dimensions and beauty of EP in the direction of understanding my perspective on Ekta Parishad. From the discussion I understand that, people still have too much dependency on Rajaji for various functions of the organization. It is something is to be handled in a responsible way. So we have to really take the responsibility and have to share the information and have to develop the leadership in all levels to continue the work of Ekta Parishad.
On the 26, 27th of March, I participated in the EE meeting at Geneva. This was a good opportunity for me to get to know all the wonderful people who are supporting the work of EP. (There will be separate minutes available for this meeting).
Coming back to Zurich in the last part of my visit, with Maggie I met Ms. Rahel at the ETH university with a group of students of the anthropology department. Rahel was in CESCI during August 2009 with a Swiss students group and she got inspired by the work of CESCI. She has organized some fundraising programs in her university and has collected some money for the CESCI village program activities. In the meeting Maggie and I made a brief presentation about Ekta Parishad and JS 2012 action followed by a video presentation. Rahel and her friends group are very active and serious and I am sure she will be a good contact for the work of EP.
Finally in a discussion with Kude I was asked to carry two important messages to Rajaji concerning the vision to develop the dream project: an Ekta Media Centre and an Ekta Media Manch. The Ekta media Centre can be established in Gwalior or in Bhopal. It will be a service and production centre for all media work within Ekta Parishad and for the media world in India and in the global network. Under the banner of Ekta Media Manch, a Media Festival can be organized with various media people and social activists are interested and capable to understand and implement the media work on the grass root level.
Carrying all these wonderful experiences and beautiful memories with me, I left for India from the Zurich airport on the 2nd of April with Emirates air lines via Dubai and arrived in Madurai safely.
I am thankful to the whole family of Ekta Parishad for providing me with this great opportunity to travel to Europe, all the friends of CESCI foundation, Switzerland and Ekta Europe who happily provided food and shelter during my stay and made use of my time and spared their valuable time to keep me busy towards the common cause.
K. Biju
No comments:
Post a Comment