Some students spend their summers loafing about, conducting an independent study in television watching and soap opera culture. Caitlin Whelan '07.5 started a community-based school in India to preserve the music of one of the country's lower castes.
Whelan, a Truman Scholar, started the Merasi School in January after spending a summer archiving traditional Merasi music for Folk Arts Rajasthan, a New York-based nonprofit that promotes cultural, economic and educational empowerment for the Merasi community.
Rajasthan's 15,000 Merasi - which literally means "musician" - are part of one of the lower castes in India. During her summer archiving music, Whelan would go by the elders' homes with a tape recorder in hand, where she had the opportunity to talk about the biggest challenges facing the community. Such issues include "marginalized citizen status, crippling poverty and no access to political representation, sustained employment or education," she said.
Whelan and Karen Lukas, director of Folk Arts Rajasthan, knew they wanted a better way to help people socially while preserving their culture.
"Modernization is blazing its way through India, and traditional music is rapidly losing its popularity. But their music is the only thing that others respect of the Merasi," Whelan said. "Yet the younger generations are put to work and do not have the time to learn the old ways of the Merasi."
"In searching for a way of merging cultural preservation with social mobility, we came to the idea of creating a music school, which would also have a scholastic component," she said. "But it was important to make the school community-based. ... The people of that community want to make their own decisions. They don't want some white kid to come in and tell them what to do, then leave them with nothing as soon as they go home."
With this in mind, Whelan found two members of the community to teach at the school, one for the academic portion and one for the music portion. The students range from five to seven years old for the "little group" and eight to 11 years old for the "big group." Class is two hours a day, six days a week.
"We realized quickly that we could not take the kids away from their families for much more than that because of the economic conditions they live in," Whelan said.
The Merasi community in Rajasthan is composed of about 15,000 people, and the school currently reaches 18 boys and girls. In the future, Whelan said she hopes to contract another teacher
- preferably a woman from the area - buy a taxi to transport the children safely and secure a building to house the school.
"There are few things less powerful than a physical presence," Whelan said. "I want the kids to pass by the building and be able to say, 'This is where I go to school.' "
Classes are currently being taught in a building belonging to another local nonprofit.
In order to go through with her plans, Whelan needs $15,000 in funds - $10,000 more than the original amount needed to start the school. She said the first 100 people to donate $150 will be named part of the "visionary core," and their names will be featured on a plaque in the new school building.
Whelan stumbled upon the community and the project by accident. She took a year and a half off from college after completing her freshman year at Sarah Lawrence College in the outskirts of New York City. Floating from a documentary writing project to an urban arts education program in Maine, she eventually ended up working on an Italian farm for three months.
"I remember being in a sunflower field in Italy when I received a fax from Brown telling me my transfer had gone through," she said, "but I was accepted for January 2005 and that left me with no real plans for the next few months."
Whelan's mother told her she would have to get out of the house soon and got her in touch with Lukas. "She's a one-woman show," Whelan said, referring to how Lukas ran Folk Arts Rajasthan before she joined.
"I remember I had no interest in India whatsoever - not the music, not the food, not anything. South Portland only has two Indian restaurants, and I didn't really like going to either," she said. "But getting involved with (FAR and the Merasi) took my world and flipped it on its head," she said.
While her work started with a focus on preserving Merasi culture, she added that the school has another purpose. "This is so that the children can see that there is someone out there that believes in their potential to grow through education," she said. "Not a day goes by that I don't walk through the Brown campus and I am not aware of how privileged we are to have this, an education. All I want is to make that accessible to others."
