Shikshantar - The Peoples' Institute for Rethinking Education and Development

Want to support eco-friendly and responsible tourism in Udaipur? Then check out the Greenleaf Ratings system we compiled - a guide for tourists to make better decisions about their hotels in Udaipur. We put this together in collaboration with the Lonely Planet guidebook, and are seeking to share it around the tourist community. Check it out and pass it on to others traveling to Udaipur - and to get new insights into what kind of tourism you could help promote!

"What's the REAL Story? Generating a Dialogue around the MDGs (the Millennium Development Goals)" is the latest addition to the Resisting the Culture of Schooling series. Many questions are raised and experiences are cited that invite us to take a deeper look at this latest UN declaration and global craze. Please share your own comments/feedback/ideas and experiences with us for the next round of conversation.

Udaipur is full of wonderful people, inspiring points of light. Read about them in our online resource directory, Shining Stars of the Lake City. As part of Udaipur as a Learning City, we have created this also as a contribution to the Multiversity, an effort to see the rich web of learning resources we have in our midst.

The 2007-2008 'Nai Taleem: Real Learning for the 21st Century' Film Festival is now ready to be screened in your hometown! Last year's festival made it to over 30 places around India, and also in several other countries, like Bolivia, Ukraine, Canada, USA, Korea, and Thailand. Check out this year's brochure, hosting information and the profile of films. The festival hopes to elevate conversations on human learning by looking at conceptual insights and practical experiences. 16+ hours of films from around India and the world have been selected. View some selected films on-line. Contact Manish Jain to see how you might organize the festival in your community!

Check out the power of the Wheel! We have been busy making bicycle-powered machines at Shikshantar. See the creations we have come up with so far -- send us your ideas and feedback for more!

Abhivyakti and Shikshantar recently co-hosted a gathering on Community Media. Many different forms of community media were explored in the five day event. We are now thinking to start a South Asian community media institute/cooperative. It will support local youth and communities in creating their own learning content and entering into deep dialogue with each other. To learn more, contact Nitin Paranjape and Manish Jain.

We've moved! After nine years at 21 Fatehpura, we have changed locations! It’s taken several days to clean up, clear out and transfer our years of gathered treasures to our new place: 83 Adinath Nagar (about one kilometer away from our previous location), We are now in the fun process of settling in, designing and decorating our collective space together. It’s a bit smaller, but we think the shift will open up many more possibilities for the Shikshantar Jeevan Andolan. We feel it will push us even more into exploring our local neighborhoods, to generate even more dynamic unlearning and learning spaces in our city and to strengthen trans-local friendships around the world. Already, we are working with neighboring plots of land to begin a herbal garden and a vegetable/local grain garden. And our neighbors — especially the children — have been welcoming us from the moment we started the move!

The 'Re-membering Nai Taleem: Real Learning for the 21st Century' Film Festival is being organized this summer in cities around India and abroad. Check out the festival brochure, profile of films, and festival poster. The festival hopes to elevate conversations on human learning by looking at conceptual insights and practical experiences. 12 hours of films have been selected, and so far 15 different communities around India have agreed to host the festival (see the hosting information letter and agreement). Contact Manish Jain to see how you might organize the festival in your community!

Check out the dialogue on Healing Ourselves from the Diploma Disease, which invites civil society organizations to say NO to degrees and certificates in their hiring or promotion processes! This is our latest publication in the Resisting the Culture of Schooling series. Share comments and reactions with us!

Check out the Families Learning Together Network! Find stories and ideas of how you can join a community of creative parenting and family dialogue. View the first issue of the network magazine. Contact Vidhi Jain to learn more!

Shikshantar and Abhivyakti invite you to co-create with us a film festival on 'Urban Living'. We are planning to produce and solicit films on different aspects of what it means today to be living, learning, growing, surviving, shaping, etc., in cities today.... The festival will travel around India early next year. Contact manish@swaraj.org or abhivyakti@sancharnet.in to learn more!

Find out about what happened during the Swapathgami Businesses We Believe In Meeting! Read new issues of the Swapathgami magazine on-line! Learn more about the Walkouts - Walkons Network and see how you might join in...

Join us in beginning a conversation on issues of child labor and dignity of learning through labor, prompted in part by the recent announcement of the Magsasay Prize given to Shanta Sinha of the MV Foundation (Andhra Pradesh, India).

To get a visual feel for Udaipur as a Learning City, check out our new photo-essays: Beauty Is In the Hands of the Beholder, Trees of Learning. Hamo Desi Mela (Udaipur's Organic Market), Herbal Gardens and Nursery and Rainwater Harvesting.

Paths of Unlearning is the latest special issue of Vimukt Shiksha. Young people from all over the world have been sharing with Shikshantar their stories of unlearning. Nationalism, Technology, Development, Consumerism, Mass Media, and, of course, Schooling are among the dominant institutions / frameworks that they have been questioning and challenging. Check out their stories as well as a number of reflections on unlearning, recently collected from collaborators around the world.

In light of events in Gujarat and growing violence worldwide, Shikshantar has prepared an invitation for dialogue, "Facing the Violence," for people all over India and all over the world. It offers not only our understanding of what is provoking this death of humanity, but also concrete ways in which we can begin to counter it, in our communities, in our families and in our selves.