Education

by the Board

2007

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Although a certain educational effect was foreseen and built into the project from the very beginning (exemplary conservation having a positive effect on local techniques, building workers for Achi will using same materials and levelling techniques after seeing its success), recent experiences and the development of the project prompt to emphasise this aspect of the work more and extend it to an actual program that shall be integrative part of the Achi Association goals.

Essentially the project sets its goal to work on work on three levels of interaction: awareness, basic education and advanced education. The three levels reach a wide range of different persons associated with the project from the local school children to academic education. It is foreseen, that this three levels will be implemented step by step within the next decade with the first level, awareness implemented with the next campaign.

Awareness

In future the project will attempt to raise more awareness regarding the project, its goals and its methods on a local village and administrative level. Each campaign by the architectural and/or painting conservation branch is accompanied at least by the following interaction efforts:

  • Approaching the local elite (monks, village head, school teacher and other educated locals) to explain and discuss the work done and planned in future with particular emphasis on how and why certain decisions are made. In this way they can be involved into the decision process also.
  • Approaching the local (primary) school to communicate what is done at the temple and why on a very basic level. School classes may also be inviting over to see the work done closely. Games and challenges (redraw deity x and y) may also help to communicate the relevance of cultural heritage.

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Basic education

The close contact of the Achi Association with the head of the Drikung-Kagyüpa school of Tibetan Buddhism and the construction and expansion of a central monastic educational institution, name xxx, at Dehradun by this order, allow for approaching more educated monks from Ladakh and elsewhere during their education. Many of these monks will eventually return to their home places and assume important functions within the monastic communities and society there. To approach them and organise workshops with them thus serves long term goals. Goal is to present and discuss conservation matters and their background in form of workshops at this educational institution.

  • Workshops are planned for architecture and technology, art-history and cultural heritage, as well as conservation and restoration.
  • Teaching goal is to establish an ability to judge the cultural value of heritage and recognise its technologies. Further, it needs to be communicated what can and should be done and not done in case of any arising problem, be it the need to change due to adaptation or an emergency event, with least damage to the cultural heritage.
  • It is hoped that these monks will take responsibility of their cultural heritage in future.

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Advanced Education

On a third level, Achi Association wants to engage itself in providing educational opportunities for natives of the target regions, currently Ladakh, in getting modern education in the fields of architecture and art conservation and restoration with the long term goal to replace the project through local available expertise. While the measures in this regard are only in an early panning stage with sorting out the possibilities, two major strands of actions can already be foreseen.

  • One possible direction is to link University Institutions in the West with partner institutions in India (probably also Nepal and China) for an exchange of students in the relevant fields.
  • The other major alley is to provide local promising students with fellowships for a study on western educational institutions in the relevant fields.

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Last changed: Fri, Nov 14, 2008

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