BBrraaiillllee WWiitthhoouutt BBoorrddeerrss FFoouurrtthh QQuuaarrtteerrllyy uuppddaattee 22001111 Dear friends and supporters of all our Braille without border's projects, Don't you feel that every year time is running faster and faster? The year 2011 was rather quick, a year with a lot of healthy developments, full of energy, fire and spice. Towards the end of each year everyone is settling down to celebrate Christmas and to look back to what all has happened. Our graduates from the IISE have returned to their respective countries. Paul and I decided to travel home to Germany and Holland after many years of celebrating Christmas either on the icy Himalayas or in the tropical surrounding of Kerala. The students in the school and the farm in Tibet are preparing for "Chrissemisse", their very special celebration which is more a combination of the Tibetan Ganden light festival, Christmas and a fair well party for Father Mike, for all students and staff. 1. THE LAND OF ICE Right now, Tibet is freezing cold. On the Farm, at an altitude of 3900 m, the temperature varies between eleven degrees Celsius during daytime and minus eleven degrees at night. Everyone is getting ready for the cold winter months January and February. Our Tibetan colleagues use South facing greenhouse like structures in front of the dormitory-windows to collect the heat of the sun. On the doors the house parents have placed extra quilts and blankets to protect the kids of the ice winds. All kids are packed in thick winter jackets, winter boots and winter “long johns”. During meals in the dining room an old iron Tibetan-yak-dung stove is lit up to heat up the room and to boil water. Everyone on the farm is preparing for the big celebration which will be held on the 21 st of December. All blind students who attend regular schools will return to their homes, but before doing so, every year they plan in a stop-over in the farm, their second home, to celebrate their achievements. Kikis Kindergarten is in Father Christmas mood. Kyila discovered the German Nicolaus tradition on her visit at my parent's place in Germany. All her children leave their shoes outside the dormitory and in the morning their shoes are filled with sweets, oranges or small little gifts. After a very successful autumn, the Preparatory school in Lhasa is also ready to close down for the long winter break. In October and November our students and teachers were busy with sensitizing the government and the society for the needs and the rights of the blind. The children created theater-plays, tragedies and comedies, and one play about the advantages of a life with a white cane. These theater plays were performed on the streets of Lhasa and received a lot of positive feedback. Currently all the students are preparing for the end of the year exams. Upon completion, they will travel to their home villages. Most of them will take several days to return home since they live in the rural areas high up in the mountains of Tibet. 2. GRADUATION in the International Institute for Social Entrepreneurs 2011 ended with a big bang. 16 graduates, 15 projects in five different continents. The last few months all participants had prepared for their graduation. One of the deliveries was a project proposal with a clear and detailed description of their concept, their plans, their motivation and a budget. The other deliverable was a 15 minutes public speech with a questions and Answers session, all in front of an international panel of experts. The presentations were live-streamed in the Internet. Some panel members were present in the auditorium and others were 1 watching online. Christine Maier, a well known Swiss talk show host and daily news anchor, had arrived one week prior to the dream speeches and helped the participants to prepare for their presentations. Christine moderated the speeches and all of them went very well. Here an extract of an article, written by Sankar Radhakrishnan - a writer, editor and communications consultant - and a member of the panel of experts. "Stories from the dream factory There’s little that can top a well-told story, especially if it is your own Story. The five stories I heard last Sunday were in a class of their own. They took me on long journeys across time, space and the recesses of the human mind. They were deeply moving stories of determination, passion and hope. Above all, they were personal stories told by women and men who have fought the odds just to have the freedom to be themselves and chase their dreams. So there I was at the International Institute for Social Entrepreneurs near Trivandrum. Every year, the institute — which is a project of Braille without Borders — runs a program to mould visionaries and social change makers. Those who attend the program come from across the world, from different backgrounds and with different physical capabilities. What unites them though is the determination to climb every mountain in pursuit of their dream. Sabriye Tenberken and Paul Kronenberg, the founders of the International Institute for Social Entrepreneurs (IISE), believe that it is a ‘dream factory’ that creates leaders who will drive social change. So towards the very end of each year’s training program, every participant gets to make a ‘dream speech’ — a presentation on the social venture they plan to run after graduating. This year, 16 change makers are graduating from the institute, and their stories and dreams are as diverse as they are. There’s Marguerite, a single mother who overcame low self-esteem, got herself a degree in her mid-30s, turned around a business and, more recently, battled the loss of her eyesight. Phoenix-like, she has risen from each adversity, and now intends to create a learning hub in Baltimore to empower African American women. Then there’s Marcus who saw his family’s fortunes turn to dust and his many ‘friends’ disappear. So what did the ever-smiling Marcus do? He went out and found himself a dream — to start a creative design-based program to help Nigeria’s marginalized youth build an identity for themselves. Being partially sighted has worked to her advantage, says Tahreer from Palestine. For it has enabled her to walk down paths that are open to very few women from Hebron. And now, she wants to help other women find ways in which they too can shape their lives. To begin with, she dreams of opening Hebron’s first Internet café for women, which will also be a safe space for Palestinian women to meet, learn and empower themselves. Raja’s story is one of spunk; of not letting his physical challenges get the better of him. It’s also a story of compassion for people who fall through society’s cracks. While talking to prisoners in the Pondicherry jail as part of his graduate research, Raja realized that their children often get a very bad deal. So his new mission is to set up centers that will take care of the young children of those who are incarcerated in India’s prisons. And then there’s Nelson, who has seen death, torture and a million other horrors brush past him during Liberia’s long civil war. Now that peace has come, he wants to empower Liberia’s disadvantaged, especially those with disabilities, through a community radio station. Beyond the adversity, passion and grit that runs through these stories is the tenet that hope endures. And that redemption is only a thought away." http://sankarrad.blogspot.com/2011/11/stories-from-dream-factory.html *The dream speeches can be viewed at: www.livestream.com/iise 3. A NEW SYMBOL FOR OUR INSTITUTE When people hear our rather long and difficult to pronounce name "International Institute for Social Entrepreneurs" they often get the impression that we are something like a social business school or one of many "leadership training centres" with a social touch. But in fact we are less and much more than that. We envision individuals anywhere in the world who, through innovative ideas, contribute to their communities in an ethical and positive way. Individuals who start schools for the blind, training centers for the disabled, all with new empowering approaches. Individuals who plan environmental projects, create technical innovations and create mind set changes by transforming concepts and challenge harmful traditional norms. 2 Are we just a training center? We see ourselves much more as a spring board for provocative thinkers and driven doers, for those who have the fire in the belly, for those who want to bring spice into society! We are searching for talented and charismatic personalities who have the guts to challenge the status quo and the spirit to come up with innovative solutions for old and new problems. The question is, how do we call these positive change makers, these visionaries who have the guts to challenge the status quo and the energy to execute ethical change? Is simply "leader" the right term? We saw ourselves in the need to find a new symbol which describes this very special kind of change makers and we discovered it in our own backyard: the symbol is a Kanthari, a small but powerful Chilly. Kanthari is a plant that grows wild in every backyard of Kerala. Kanthari is famous for its medicinal values, it stands for purity, ethics and energy, it creates a sensation, and functions as a wake-up call. The Chief Guest of our graduation ceremony, Mr. TP Sreenivasan, a former ambassador and a former Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations, Described his impressions in the Indian Express.