Whelan '07.5 founds Merasi School in India's Rajasthan
Christian Martell
Issue date: 10/11/07 Section: Campus News
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Whelan, a Truman Scholar, started the Merasi School in January after spending a summer archiving traditional Merasi music for Folk Arts Rajasthan, a New York-based nonprofit that promotes cultural, economic and educational empowerment for the Merasi community.
Rajasthan's 15,000 Merasi - which literally means "musician" - are part of one of the lower castes in India. During her summer archiving music, Whelan would go by the elders' homes with a tape recorder in hand, where she had the opportunity to talk about the biggest challenges facing the community. Such issues include "marginalized citizen status, crippling poverty and no access to political representation, sustained employment or education," she said.
Whelan and Karen Lukas, director of Folk Arts Rajasthan, knew they wanted a better way to help people socially while preserving their culture.
"Modernization is blazing its way through India, and traditional music is rapidly losing its popularity. But their music is the only thing that others respect of the Merasi," Whelan said. "Yet the younger generations are put to work and do not have the time to learn the old ways of the Merasi."
"In searching for a way of merging cultural preservation with social mobility, we came to the idea of creating a music school, which would also have a scholastic component," she said. "But it was important to make the school community-based. ... The people of that community want to make their own decisions. They don't want some white kid to come in and tell them what to do, then leave them with nothing as soon as they go home."
With this in mind, Whelan found two members of the community to teach at the school, one for the academic portion and one for the music portion. The students range from five to seven years old for the "little group" and eight to 11 years old for the "big group." Class is two hours a day, six days a week.
"We realized quickly that we could not take the kids away from their families for much more than that because of the economic conditions they live in," Whelan said.