Yangthang Village Youth Club

My village Yangthang was connected by road half a century years ago but it didn't change us much, other than the occasional bus services people walked most of time. There was road but people didn’t have cars to use it. Twenty years ago electricity illuminated our village. The last two decades with road and electricity both couldn't quite transform my stubborn village. We remained backward in our ways of life and in our outlook to life.

The small generation of educated lot had to leave the village, and some of them who had strong influence over the village couldn't quite reconnect to the village realities, therefore fancied the idea of maintaining our village like a living museum- after all how much can they do during their week long annual visits? 

Over the years my generation of educated lot thrived and we were bigger in number but we too had to leave the village. Our village still remained a museum and we were mere annual tourists who only dreamt of bigger changes and better lives. We were disappointed but to our credit our tradition and our values were well preserved, we were harmless as much as we were helpless. 

Then the television made a grand entry. Few households that had TV became the popular hub of social gathering, our sleep pattern changed, our conversation lessened and overnight change became evident. It was at least serving a good purpose of giving people a common place and common subject to dwell on after their hard day's works until every house hold got their own TV sets. Then it isolated families. People stopped coming out, they talking about issues in Indian serial homes rather than issues at home and in the village. Younger generation showed lesser interest in the village affairs thereby risking the natural course of transition of tradition from one generation to another. 

Just when we thought the worst have happened the smartphones revolution began and this time it didn’t take long before the urban wind blew into the villages. With huge literate population living in the village the social lives became virtual just like in towns. That’s a dangerous trend invading the most potential generation in our village at the moment.

During the Launch

While it is tempting to force some solutions out of books, we must remember the classic egg breaking analogy which goes- if an egg is broken by outside force, life ends. If broken by inside force, life begins. Great things always begin from inside. We are more or less mere outsiders in our village and in their generation. If meaningful change has to happen it has to come from among themselves. We can only facilitate.

The youngest group

One of the significant facilitation was construction of the READ center in my village. It’s the first step toward an enlightened community. The facility is serving its purpose and beyond, and it’s continuously developed to suit the need of the community. It’s interesting to see how our people’s expectation from the READ center is changing and growing. At times they push the librarians to their wits end and thus we lost one librarian.

Electoral Education 

To ensure effective use of the facility and to address our growing issues, including taking responsibility of the center and other common spaces I have thought of a village youth club, which finally became a reality on the first day of Lomba. I named it Yangthang Village Youth Club. On the day of its launch we had 58 students, living and going to school from the village every day, registered as members. I am hoping this youth body, given the right conditions and opportunities, would identify and address our own local issues. I am also hoping that their unity will inspire and build harmony in the community and ensure better rural lives. Lopen Chimi Rinzin, a senior teacher and very steadfast member of the village agreed to lead the pack as the club master.

Youth goes to Poll

So far we received support from the following organization and individuals

1.     Rotary Club of Thimphu: A computer set for club works

2.    Deki Om: 45 pieces of club T Shirts

3.    Karma Yangzom: 45 pieces of club caps

4.    Dzongkhag Election office: In electing club captains.

The two individual donors are from our own village living away. Like them there are many successful folks living away from home that I hope will support the village through the club. I have received commitments from some friends for certain initiatives and I’m also looking forward to capacity building and life skills training for the members from READ Bhutan, VAST, BCMD, and YDF.

Some of the strategies outlined for the club are;

1.    Volunteerism in the Village

Yangthang Village Youth Club intends to serve the village community to address local issues and needs in the areas of health, environmental sustainability, cultural preservation, and socioeconomic development.

These activities include but are not limited to:

·      Conduct advocacy programs to promote health and hygiene in the village

·      Provide helping hands during cultivation and harvest

·      Take initiatives to manage village waste (behavioral change, waste segregation, decomposing, recycling)

·      Take ownership of common spaces in the village and initiate maintenance works to ensure the sustainability of the common spaces: Lhakhang, Archery ground, Electric fencing, Bridges, Chortens, Flood retention wall, Drainage, Road, Drinking water source, etc.

·      Volunteer and provide support during village events

·      Plan and undertake the building of small social infrastructures: Dustbins, Pit, Menchhu, Fencing, Wall, Rest House, Footpath, Water supply, etc.

·      Reforestation of barren land along the river

2.    Educational Enrichment

In addition to civic engagement, the Yangthang Village Youth Club also provides educational platforms that enrich the learning experiences of the youth members. These activities include:

·      Initiate a comprehensive village reading program

·      First Friday For Folk Tales: Invite a village elder to tell folk tales to children. Children will also attempt to rewrite the folk tales.

·      Sunday Reading Hour: One Sunday in a month, Children gather at the READ center to read for one hour together.

·      Sunday Book Talk: Another Sunday in a month, few selected children will talk about the books they read. Their reviews will be display on the wall for a month.

·      Initiate a youth mentorship program

Older youth members can provide mentorship to younger members in terms of academics and other areas of youth development

·      Initiate a Spiritual Life speakers program

Invite a local monk or nun to come speak to the youth once every month to explain some religious concept or lead a short prayer/meditation

3.    Youth Leadership

Lastly, the Yangthang Village Youth Club provides the youth members with the opportunity to learn key leadership skills through the club’s management and development. Club captains will be elected annually through standard electoral process. This not only enables the club members to practice the principles of democratic citizenship, but also enables the elected youth captains to step up and provide guidance and voice for the club members. All club members will also learn to raise and generate funds to support the club’s programs and sustainability.

Lastly, many of the club meetings and activities will be held in the READ Center in the Yangthang READ Center. The club members will be responsible for ensuring that the Yangthang READ Center facilities that they use are well-maintained, tidy, and well-utilized.

Matalungchu Beyond My Expectation

Matalungchu is a village above my school, hidden behind the ridge on which Bajo Lhakhang stands. All I have seen in the last many years was that Lhakhang and beyond that is just an imaginary village I have never been to. This weekend School Museum Club members persuaded me to take them on the long promised village tour and we took the journey into the imaginary village.

The Team Musuem

I packed two bananas and a bottle of water for the journey which I assumed to be just as far as behind the Lhakhang but when we reached the top of the ridge I couldn't believe that a whole world lies beyond that tiny hill. My imagination had been betraying me for many years, there is no village behind the lhakhang. The village is across the endless paddies. The village is not small.

Waiting under the only tree in sight!

The landscape is the best geographical art I have seen in Bhutan, with occasional and unusual plateaus rising from the plains of paddies. I wished I could own one of them and build a small cottage on it. But I also noticed that there were no trees as far as the eyes could reach, the farmland has driven the treeline away on to the hills, otherwise it was a dreamland.

From one part of the Village to another...

My team was on the mission to collect rural everyday items for our school museum. I have instructed my children to let the villagers understand what we are after and why we are collecting those items, I also told them not to accept any antiques or expensive items (in case some people turned out to be very kind). So we structured our language this way,

"... we are starting a museum in our school which we intend to create like a typical rural home, for that we need everyday items that were used by our ancestors in the villages, if you have any of those old things that are no more used, please donate to our school..."

The first house which stood all by itself was a bit shocked because two boys rushed in and began asking for old items, but when the woman saw the whole team outside she gave away a plough, and two other bamboo items. We refined our approach and our language, I tested the team leaders on their approach and we even made it a team challenge. By the time we reach the cluster of gigantic houses we were joined by folks themselves, they recommended us places to go and some led us to their own places. We were treated with fresh peaches. A woman patiently demonstrated how traditional weighing scale is used.

Aum Chimi Dem showing my children how many Sangs make up a kg

The villagers agreed that much of what we are seeking have disappeared even from the villages and therefore they complimented our effort in trying to preserve it somewhere for the future to witness.

We lunched at newly renovated Matacungchu Lhakhang, where my children offered me lunch by collecting a spoon each from every tiffin- it turned out that the man who didn't bring packed lunch got the most to eat. An ex student who lives there brought me a cup of hot suja and zaw. With the new energy we headed further into the village. The houses were massive three storeyed structures with aristocratic ancient designs surrounded by unbelievably clean campus- it was nothing like the villages I have known so far.

Truly a Bhutanese Village

As I sat in the middle of the village minding the already collected items I couldn't hold my smile at the sight of my children coming with amazing artifacts from all directions. They were even more excited and encouraged that we extended our journey further across to another part of the village. The village seemed endless but my children won't agree to return after having come so far.

Novin and Leki Wishing if they could take one because we couldn't get one of these.

It was 5pm by the time we could convince ourselves to call it a day and then we realized that we have collected more than we could carry. We adjusted small items into biggers ones and made one load for each one of us, they gave a wooden waa for my shoulder. By my calculation we were at least few hours away from the school and if we had to walk all the way with the load we won't be home for dinner. So I started making calls with my almost dying phone, if someone didn't respond within a few minutes my cell battery would be dead and we would be on our own. But my friend Tandin Tshewang responded promptly and rescued us.

Celebration in my heart!

This first successful and enriching excursion gave birth to our plan of visiting Rinchengang, Wanjokha and Ninzigang over the months. And for the record this time we have collected 53 artifacts from 18 households.

And that is me posing with a jasum and jazi

After So Many Wednesdays

I began a new club in my school called eLearning Club this year. The members were recruited from different levels and right on the first club day I fed them with big dreams. I presented to them what we are going to show to the school on the last day of the club, giving them the mental picture of the annual club exhibition day.

Members who presented on the Day, there are more outside the picture.

Over the many Wednesdays we met our ideas narrowed down to small projects and we divided ourselves into subjects groups to venture out hunting for materials. I let them know that there are endless resources on internet to bank on. By the second month Rigsum has launched their Sherig Collection and we didn't have to struggle much on international materials anymore.

However, we took inspiration from Sherig Collection and worked on our own tutorial videos and audio books. Some students produced impressive maths video tutorials. But we failed on recording videos of important Science experiments, this is something we will take up seriously next year.

Last Wednesday, the time finally came for us to show what we have done in so many Wednesdays and I reflected on the vision we had. We set up a projector, two laptops and a computer connected to 42" LCD screen.
Following are the works we exhibited.

1. Animated offline webpage, which contained all our works subject-wise. We had video tutorials, question bank, presentations,... on various subjects in website.
2. We had a presentation on our members' blogs.
3. We had set up a laptop as a station for the visitors to listen to the audio book recording of "Dawa, the story of stray dog in Bhutan"
4. We had digital comic books of many short stories taught in different levels of classes, and also had print version of some of them.
5. We had another station where we had installed Rigsum Sherig Collection for demonstration and distribution. 

By the end of the exhibition, after over 700 visitors came in and walked out with excitement I knew we have lived the dream we saw on the first day. My Club members were so happy themselves and perhaps they now know what they have to do to make 2014 Exhibition even bigger.

Kindly visit my students' blog and motivate them:

MY STUDENTS' BLOG

• Dhan's Ultrabook
• Teenager+
• The Real World
• Kalden Wangchuk
• Kinley Diary
• Thinley Jamtsho Journal
• JamSo DiaRy
• Tashi Jamtsho's Notebook
• Journal of my life!
• Biren's Dairy