Vanshala (meaning ‘forest school’)

At an hour's distance from the capital city of central state, Madhya pradesh in India lies an audacious attempt at change - Sumiran Ecological Foundation.At Sumiran, the 300 acre of forest, a hundred yards away from the spot where tiger was spotted last week and leopard the week before, few children are busy observing an uncommon bird. “ That’s a kestrel” - said one of them. No, it looks like a “ broad chested eagle” to me. The adult standing behind is silently observing what’s happening while making some notes for the activity supposed to follow. This is just a snippet of a new forest school - Vanshala at Sumiran.

Vanshala is a nature-centric, activity-based, and learner-driven learning space designed for children aged 5 to 15. With sustainability as a core objective and the holistic well-being of children as a fundamental value, Vanshala endeavors to pioneer a vision for the future of schooling. Present-day educational paradigms are increasingly deemed outdated in terms of their content, processes, and outcomes, thereby necessitating a significant overhaul. The convergence of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the climate crisis further accentuates the urgency of this transformative transition.


With experienced educationists, environmentalists, researchers and artists - the diverse team is striving to solve the complex equation of education, learning and schooling. In spite of various sincere attempts in the past, from Waldroff to Summerhill, from J Krishnamurti to Aurobindo - most solutions remained inadequate and incomplete. Vanshala is aspiring to learn from the past experiments,modern neurosciences and cognitive sciences and keep an eye on the highly unpredictable future - to build a solution that others can replicate, learn from and expand to other diverse backgrounds.

Vanshala is nestled in a diverse ecosystem where sustainable agriculture, sustainable farming, rain water harvesting and biodiversity has been practiced for the last 20 years. The key beneficiaries of this initiative are the rural and tribal sections of society who are deprived of quality education and thus opportunities to have a good life in modern society.

Creating lasting change requires a robust community.Therefore, we are extending an invitation to individuals and organizations who have long harbored dreams of affecting real change in the world by transforming the education system. We welcome you to join and become integral members of this initiative.

Background
The redundancy and inefficiency of the modern schooling system that was designed based on the industrial revolution is becoming increasingly evident in the current age of artificial intelligence and ecological crisis. Amongst the plethora of alternatives proposed to alter this education system like Waldroff, Aurobindo’s Integral education, Krishnamurti foundation, Montessori method, Summerhill approach, Ivan Ilich’s way of deschooling, etc. , none has shown a strong hope for solutions that are replicable, scalable and accessible to all socio-economic sections of society.

Today, a child in rural India joins the education system either by being part of government schools or joining the nearest accessible private school. Government schools, in spite of all claims, and efforts of the government still remain highly inefficient with hardly any real learning happening to the majority of the students. Private schools on the other hand do offer slightly better education but are again quite expensive to most. The result is high dropout rates and a huge loss of human talent. Yet another dire consequence of this situation has been loss of hope and faith in the education system by families that sell off their lands to educate their child, migrate to cities, investing their life savings to finally get their post-graduate son to end up only in unemployment.

Vanshala is committed to make quality and relevant education accessible to all, especially to the gonds, bhils and other tribals of eight adjoining villages.

Sumiran : a possible solution
At Sumiran, we’ve been working for more than 2 decades now to deeply understand the crisis of humanity and ecology. Sumiran has successfully applied this evolving understanding to achieve ground level solutions that mitigate ecological crises and human risks. Sumiran today stands as a success story, a unique case study in various fields like rain water harvesting, increasing biodiversity, creating sustainable farming based livelihood ecosystems and many more allied fields.

Vanshala : extending the canvas
Sumiran is a rich, beautiful bio-diverse forest community in central India.Perhaps, Sumiran is a rare and unique phenomenon that is working on a holistic approach . Sumiran’s ever growing community is now embarking on a new beautiful journey in the realm of learning. Learning is one of the foundational pillars of Sumiran’s holistic approach to life along with 4 other Ls i.e Livelihood, Living, Laughter and Love.

Zorba The Buddha - the new man
So far we see a huge divide in the inner and outer, inscience and spirituality. Our education system continues to cater to this fragmented view. Some propagate only science, only the outer manifestation of the world ignoring or denying the inner, while others continue to do the opposite. Osho used the term “Zorba-the buddha” to describe the possibility of a new man, a new world where science and spirituality are integrated. Zorba stands for excellence, prosperity, abundance while the Buddha signifies peace, compassion and joy. We wish to work on the creation of this new man through this new venture of education.

Process :
● a school that brings in the best balance of alternative and mainstream.
● Children learn indigenous systems as well as modern systems.
● Right balance of work on Body, Mind and Soul.
● Education that involves - hand, head and heart.
● Research oriented approach : We wish to study deeply various dimensions of education
● Work on a model that is Scalable,accessible and replicable.
● Creation of a man that can hold gracefully together- kala(art and aesthetics), kaushal(skill and expertise) and vidya (wisdom and knowledge).

Team :
Sumiran is supported by a group of doctors, engineers, IAS, IPS, IITans, IIMs and other professionals across the country who've excelled at the mainstream education and yet could clearly identify major flaws in it. These individuals always dreamt of being part of positive change which brings them together at SUMIRAN.

No doubt, with the current state of affairs - ecological and political, economic crisis, looming wars and irresponsible leaderships - the future looks bleak. Yet, if there is a possibility , if there is something that holds hope to not only save the world but also create the paradise we’ve always imagined, it'll definitely appear in seeds like SUMIRAN. Initiatives like SUMIRAN are our opportunity to correct the mistakes we’ve collectively made as humanity and re-align our lives, our planet to thrive.

Interested to know more ? Contact us today

CONTACT US

Sumiran Ecological Foundation
Barkheda Bazyat , near Sagoni Village
Bilkisganj, Dist Sehore
Madhya Pradesh

Phone: 93 02 44 38 18
Email: sumiran.forest@gmail.com