It was a overcast Sunday morning. It was not raining though. The Ichhapur Headquarter of the Shevashram was as usual busy—patients flocked into the low cost medical facility, guardians waited into the waiting hutments for their day-scholar wards undergoing Sunday classes, the inmates were busy with their daily chores, some were cleaning the yards, some washing their clothes and spreading them on a piece of green field to dry in the open air.

Sukharanjan and Shyamal, two representative from the Devipur village, who are spearheading the movement there, had already reached the Ichhapur Ashram from Devipur on 10th July and had initiated the discussions with the Ashram authorities. As per their reports, since the last workshop they have achieved the followings:

Recently a team from Joydhak conducted a follow up workshop at Priyabala Vidyabithi at Asannagar, Nadia.

A Big Dream Coming True:
The good works of the Shri Aurobindo Institution of Kalyani, West Bengal.

by Barnali Saha

I have always felt that there is a wall between us and the world. It is as if some mighty drapery is shutting down our complete view of the other side. In our warmly lit, fire place rolling sumptuous world we live in one glass house of comfort while the landscape on the other side faces drastic tectonic shifts everyday. In the other world existence is a struggle in itself and paucity is the only procession that its inmates have. On my last visit to India, I had a microscopic view of the pain and the sullen current of despair that flows in the other world, And what I found strange is that most people talk about this other world at length, they write, they are vociferous but when it comes to changing the condition that persists, only a handful of men come to the forefront.  I was lucky to have come across a galaxy of such wonderful men and women struggling hard to make the other world a better place to dwell.

Recent awareness and in many cases fuss about environment and ecology arose only since the middle of the twentieth century. In fact, the current wave of environment awareness got a fillip only after the United Nations Conference on Human Environment held in 1972 at Stockholm (Sweden), and the matter gained further importance after the Earth Summit held in 1992 at Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). However during the early 20th century Rabindranath Tagore dealt in detail with various aspects of environment (and in a more coherent way than the present day piece meal analysis) in various writings.

The editors and the team who publish the excellent Joydhak Bengali Children's Online Magazine also keep conducting workshops with children belonging to various non formal educational formations across rural Bengal. The idea is to study the patterns and suggest improvement.

Read all about the unique endeavor by Joydhak.