Local initiatives – Judy and Valerie On the Road

San Francisco Mission District

We took a bus to the Latino area of San Francisco, the Mission District, for one of the highlights of our visit to San Francisco, the Precita Eyes murals tour. Precita Eyes is a community based mural arts organisation which was founded in 1977. Its aim is “to enrich and transform urban environments and educate communities locally and internationally about the process and the history of public community mural art”. It offers low cost art classes for children, young people and adults, mural education workshops and seasonal community painting workshops. It also offers mural tours.

The tour we went on was led by the lovely Carmela Gaspar who was really interesting and very informative. Most of the tour took place in nearby Balmy Alley, which runs between 24^th and 25^th Street. Balmy Alley is a privately owned road in which all the walls and garage doors are covered in amazing murals, some painted in the 1970’s and some as recently as this year. Many of them have a political theme such as human rights, political corruption, gentrification and government injustice, and the titles are often in Spanish (click on the images to enlarge)

In addition to those in Balmy Alley there are more than sixty other murals in the Mission District. Precita Eyes have produced a map showing where they are, their titles and the names of the muralists who created them.

After feasting our eyes on these colourful, vibrant and very powerful murals we wandered through Mission, sampling some Mexican food on the way of course. We came to a bookshop called Medicina para Pesadillas – Medicine for Nightmares and saw a woman standing in the shop window holding a microphone, and a crowd standing outside. As we drew nearer, we realised that she was reading out her poems and they were being broadcast in the street! Later we also came upon various bands playing music in the street. It was a great atmosphere.

We ended the day walking to 18^th Street to take a look at the amazing mural on the outside of the Women’s Building and then people watching in Dolores Park as we admired the great views over the city.

Portalegre Tapestry Museum

The last time we went to Portalegre we visited the Tapestry factory thinking we were at the museum. This time we managed to find the museum … and what a fantastic place. One of the staff who spoke excellent English gave us our own guided tour, describing the origins of the tapestry industry in the town and showing us some of the artists, their paintings and how the art form has progressed over the past 50 years. The particular techniques they use are protected by law and no one else is allowed to use them. Here are photos of some of the works.

Jodhpur- Chandaleo Garh

at Jodhpur we stayed slightly outside the town at Chandaleo Garh which Mary had told me about. The estate has been in the family of Pranduman Singh for generations and in 1997 he turned it into a hotel. But it’s rather different to other places and was our favourite accommodation of the whole trip. It’s very simple, peaceful and beautiful.

In addition he has established a craft centre where women from the village can develop new skills and earn an income.

The evening meal was held on the rooftop and we were lucky enough to see the blood blue moon which was an amazing sight

Mr Singh took us out in his jeep to visit the weaver and on the way we saw camels and a blue antelope.

Jodhpur Tie and Dye workshop

Whilst in Jodhpur we went to a Tie and Dye workshop at ‘Isha Silk’ run by Ishwar Dewani on the rooftop of his house. Neither of us knew what to expect and our only experience was back in the 60s.

So this is pretty different to those T-shirts back in the day. Ishwar first described the process he uses for his professional dying and then took us through a simplified version.

We were each give a square of silk folded over 4 times and tacked along 3 sides. We put blobs of dye in a number of places making sure it went all the way through.

Then we wound thread several times creating small knots in the centre of each blob. The material under the thread will retain the dye colour.

The material was then placed in a bleach solution so that it went completely white, rinsed, and then placed in a dye. It was rinsed again, dried in the sun, and then we removed the knots. Hey presto!

Jaisalmer Prabhu handicraft

Wandering through the streets inside the fort we were stopped by Bobby, who had a handicraft shop where she sells products produced by rural women, and who turned out to be an ardent feminist. She was very vociferous about wanting to empower women and for women not to have to be confined to their traditional roles. We asked her what her husband thought about this and she said he was unhappy about it to start with but now was ok. She has two daughters and is bringing them up to be like her, but had received a lot of criticism from her family. She’s studying for a BA at the university.

Thrive Seed

Thrive Seed are a not for profit initiative in Delhi, and Sonu, who runs it is an extraordinary woman. We called in to see her when we visited Delhi.

Sonu came to Delhi from Nepal with her husband and started teaching slum children in a back yard. Most of these children receive no other education as they have to work during the day to help provide for their families. Parents of other children heard about the school and so it grew. She now runs three slum schools which teach Hindi, Maths and English. She also runs women’s empowerment classes where women develop different skills which can assist them in make a living e.g. sewing, candle making.

The project runs purely off donations from individuals, although it is in the process of acquiring FCRA status.

Volunteers are encouraged to go and teach in the school and this helps both with the English teaching and with networking. Valerie’s niece Hana spent three weeks there in November.

To find out more or donate go to the ThriveSeed web site
http://www.thriveseed.org
And the Thrive Seed Facebook page

If you can think of any ways in which people over here can help, e.g. in fundraising, volunteering, providing general charity/business expertise – please let me know