*16th December 2025* In the last week of November I spent a week at Hosapete, visiting a number of our Vismaya Kalike learning centers. Instead of prioritizing time with children, this time I made sure to give one on one time to facilitators and understand them better. I also had the chance to have initial conversations with community organisations and members from Pothnal (Raichur District), Badami (Bagalakote District) and Hithnal (Koppala District). This was my most extensive time spent in rural India and I learnt a lot about how things work. The following are some reflections from my one week spent here. I've always had a difficult relationship with "guilt" and the first thing that struck me after spending a week with Sakhi Trust is how I didn't give the same time and effort to our collaboration with DBRC in Andhra Pradesh. While I can rationalise this by talking about the distance and lack of bandwidth, the truth is I simply did not give DBRC OLCs enough time and my lack of understanding of rural challenges was one of the reasons we couldn't build a fruitful partnership. The reason for this guilt of course comes from a space of the positive results of our collaboration in Hosapete. Though challenges are different, this visit taught me that Vismaya Kalike can work quite well in rural areas. The most obvious difference between rural and urban areas is the availability of space. There's a lot more space to play and even streets are a lot more viable to set up learning centres in rural areas. Space is an important factor for play and many facilitators are taking advantage of the space through outdoor activities. Both children and adults seem to feel a lot safer in rural areas than urban spaces. Perhaps because these are small communities where everyone knows everyone safety isn't as much of a concern. I was quite surprised to see facilitators and girls in the area comfortable traveling at night in public transport. We'd often hear our facilitators in urban areas not be comfortable with traveling. There's a lot more receptivity in rural communities than in urban spaces. One part of this is of course the lack of options and opportunities. While we are starting to see some tuitions crop up most of the time ViKa is the only opportunity for the youth facilitator to get employed and the children to have a learning environment. But this is not the only reason. My conversations with Manjula in Badami and Chinnamma in Pothnal about setting up joyful learning spaces felt like preaching to the choir. They both knew very well that only when children are given freedom and allowed to play would we be able to create an effective learning space. Caste plays a HUGE role in rural Karnataka. It did not come across overtly but if you spend even five minutes in the village it becomes clear that villages are divided in caste lines. Most of our centres tend to be homogenous and in Hithnal our facilitator talked about how the children from one center would not mingle with the children in another. One facilitator pointed out how children would not come because the community felt they could not learn from a Dalit teacher. Caste dynamics present complex challenges that we need to understand and not ignore. Perhaps, shared events with two centers near one another could be useful spaces to break barriers. Caste also plays a huge role in the aspirations of people. Education is seen as a path to dignity and respect for members of the dominated caste. While employment is the primary concern in urban areas in the rural areas dignity is also an important component. When we look at [[Biestan Purposes of Education]] qualification becomes particularly important in rural areas. We see disproportionately the desire to do a PhD and having the title "doctor" despite there not being any meaningful opportunities associated with that degree. Government schools in rural Karnataka seem to be doing academics a lot better than even many private schools in urban areas. While FLN is still a challenge it's very rare to find children who don't have even a basic idea of numbers or the alphabet something we come across a fair amount in urban areas. Having said that my experience is purely anecdotal and many community members talked about the prevalence of dropouts among the children and youth in the area. Another standout for me from my visit was the strength of the women I encountered. Whether it was Chinnamma who runs a 5000 women strong union or Manjula a 12th standard aspiring lawyer the passion, drive and dedication they had to their work was truly inspiring. To be able to do what they have done with the resources they had and facing the battles they had to overcome is just incredible. One of the important components of Vismaya Kalike is to build such strong leaders in our facilitators and my visit has made me just as excited to work with our facilitators as with children. It's important to note that my experiences may not be the norm for rural Karnataka or even for the districts I visited. Sakhi Trust our partner has done some incredible work in women empowerment, community health, dignified livelihoods, rehabilitation etc. in Hosapete and surrounding districts. They have supported many of our facilitators since they were children and have built a strong trust in the communities. What this means is that my experience while real comes while sitting on almost two decades of work in these communities. The challenges of rural Karnataka are quite different from those in Urban Bangalore but despite the differences the core principles of Vismaya Kalike do seem to translate quite well in these areas. What I'm most struck by is how much I learned in one week just spending time in the communities and interacting with people. I'm left with more questions than answers, but better questions than I came with Maybe that's what I owe DBRC in hindsight, not just more visits, but this kind of slower attention. *PS: We're raising funds for 100 learning centres including the 50 currently operational ones in Hosapete and Bangalore. 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