Bahá’í World/Volume 26/The New Era Development Institute, India
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PROFILE:
THENEWERA DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE, INDIA
“ 0 ur aim is that the individual has a new Vision, a new heart, has a desire to give service, has increased self—confidence, and has understood the connection between his service and his growth. And further, that he has gained a trade by which he can earn an income and has learned a few skills that can be of service to his community.” This statement by Sherif Rushdy, director of the New Era Development Institute (N EDI), reflects the Vision of individual transformation that the Institute has for each person it trains. NEDI, located in Panchgani, India, is a development training institute of the country’s Bahá’í community. Evolving out of local development initiatives started by the New Era High School in 1975, it was formally established as a national training center in 1987. In the past decade, over eight hundred rural youth have been trained at NEDI, and currently over two hundred students are trained each year, nearly half of whom are Bahá’ís. The fundamental purpose of the New Era Development Institute is to learn about development and then translate this learning into appropriate training programs. NEDI does so by involving its
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staff and students in the life of a large number of the communities in its immediate Vicinity and in selected target areas around the country. Such involvement facilitates experimentation with innovative approaches to community development, which is then translated into an improved training program—a highly dynamic mutual interaction.
NEDI’s primary activity is conducting the Integrated Vocational Training Program, which is aimed at producing a group of capable and energized individuals who can return to their villages and, while supporting themselves, undertake and encourage local sustainable development efforts. The Integrated Vocational Training Program is composed of a multifaceted core curriculum and a technical or professional training track, which varies for each course.
The core curriculum, at the heart of NEDI’s educational program, is a combination of classroom, dormitory, campus, and Village level activities which complement, build on, and reinforce each other. It includes putting students into mixed groups, called NEDI families, which learn to function as a community, planning and undertaking various service activities. There are also classes on the nature, dynamics, and skills of development and on a variety of practical skills useful at the community level. These classes provide the initial exposure, awareness-raising, knowledge, and basic skills for all other activities and are the forum in which activities are planned and experiences are processed and evaluated. Another program
At NEDI 3‘ Panchgam' campus, students
in the motorcycle repair program work on a scooter.
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NED] has a year—long program in computer science. Like all programs, it includes a core curriculum ofmoral education which focuses on equipping students with the tools to engage in community development work once they return to their homes.
component is individual and group study of the Bahá’í sacred writings and selected quotations 0n Virtues, followed by a process of decision making, action, and evaluation of the improvement of students’ character and behavior. Also in the curriculum is a variety of cultural and artistic activities and performances, both on campus and in the Villages. In these, students learn to appreciate their own and other cultures and to convey educational messages through the arts, such as theater.
“We teach the basic principles of religion, principles that are common to all the world’s religions—we don’t teach the Bahá’í Faith per 36,” said Dr. Radha Rest, the Institute’s core curriculum coordinator, “At the same time, however, most of the main elements of the curriculum are drawn from the Bahá’í teachings.”
Vocational and professional skills in NEDI’S training program include motorcycle or automobile repair, repair and maintenance of audiovisual materials, animal husbandry, secretarial and office management, rural electronics, refrigeration and air conditioning, tailoring and home science, and pre—primary and primary teacher training. Courses vary in their duration, entry requirements, and technical components, but all share the common core curriculum, in Which all students participate regardless of their vocational interest. Most courses at the certificate level are one year in duration, While the primary teacher/developer course is a two-year diploma course.
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T raining pre-primary school teachers is one of the programs oflered at NEDI. Shown is a Class Ofstudents working with pre-primary school children who attend a small model school on the NEDI campus.
N EDI also selects the most suitable and experienced graduates of its certificate courses and enrolls them in a diploma—level apprenticeship program through which they become facilitators and trainers for regional development.
“In this way, our aim is that each student should leave with some service skill—how to promote health, hygiene, literacy, and the like; some spiritual skills—so they know why they are doing these things; some vocational skills—so they can get some money to support themselves; and some cultural skills, meaning training in tolerance and diversity and the arts—so they have the confidence and the capacity to be leaders, and so they are able to convey development messages through the arts,” says Mr. Rushdy.
On average, about forty percent of NEDI’S graduates have established their own business or school in a rural area and another thirty percent have found employment in their trade or profession. Others have chosen to continue their education or have found employment in unrelated areas.
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A preliminary agreement for formal collaboration between NED] and Telemark College S Department of T eacher Training in Notodden, Norway, was signed on 2 July 1997. Shown here are Arvid Gjengedal (left), Dean
of the faculty of Telemark College, and SherifRuShdy (right), Director ofNEDI.
Manahar Birari is one of the many successful graduates emerging from the NEDI program. A 1995 graduate with a pre-primary teaching certificate, Mr. Birari is the director of the Bahá’í hostel in Bhisya in the Dang Region. The hostel provides free room and board, as well as daily moral education classes, to about twentyeight students aged ten to fifteen. The hostel is crucial as it allows students to stay in the region for their schooling While their parents work outside the district. Mr. Birari and his Wife are essentially full-time volunteers at the hostel, receiving only room and board and a small allowance. Mr. Birari’s goal since graduating has been to assist in the work of community development.
NEDI provides a living tutorial in inspired, holistic, sustainable action. As with all Bahá’í development proj ects, it strives to create a pattern of living that releases individual potential and simultaneously promotes the collective good.
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