Agnes Kunze 1962

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Leaders in gestation


We ended the year 1968 with Catholic Hospital Association’s exhibition of our products, with colour weaving demonstration on the spot- at Delhi still untouched -, with a few dozen of hospital bed-sheets ordered by Belgian Salesians Sisters  Administrators, mostly.

The Kripaon ki Mata colony admitted                .


                                                                                                                                                                                       
                                                     
two shock
recruits,

Tula
Bahadur
and
Rumal
Singh,
  

both in their teens





 All these young, uneducated (except Bangaraiah), were put to the coming  challenge, willingly, under Agnes credo, she wrote as Preface to the later booklet “Experiment & Experience”, which is reproduced below.

 For us, her ward, it meant coming first to terms with our  obvious handicaps, nasty bacilli for most, inexperience for me.

The motto was : “do your daily concrete work properly” in a spirit of humility and service to each other.
  But Community work, like a cow maintainance scheme, offered  (housing and selected mother and calf)  was not very well accepted, since it is an old-age habit in begging colonies  to subsist with individual care of private hens and goats rearing, while Pierre was aflame after his kibbutz experience and the May 68 movement.
  When Agnes and he ordered more mobilization under the slogan “no thread, no cloth”, there was quite an opposition Agnes was ripe to deal with, but not me.
Thus, I left her with the problem, to take some rest and make a tour of South-India.

Delhi 1968
  So once more Agnes picked up the broken pieces and made the Community whole, using the art of compromise, with the help of the “new” workers, and a couple of  medium-term volunteers.
  By early 1970, a chastened Pierre was back into the fold, and resumed workshop direction with more cooperative workers, while some repairs and improvements were carried off, namely tne workshop west verandah and the replacement of the first Agnes-building roof from metal to asbestos.
 By January ’71, I felt like expressing in writing the past and present challenges,  after abandoning with Agnes a rough project to try and start reviving textile oriented work at Brahmapuri, after my Indian tutor took us there, and has us meet Swami Chidandaji, Head of Shivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, concerned with the plight of the leprosy patients he was instrumental to have them shifted from town to that beautiful location upstream of Mother Ganga, but hardly visited and fed the basic food.
  Our unconditional Agnes Friends Circle would have back us, but finally we felt the situation in Dehra-dun was not ripe enough to engage our tryst with an other similar challenge (not so similar as we experienced 2 years later).



 My text of early 71 is  quoted below; while the Agnes’ provisional summing up of 1972, after KKM Handweaving Society legal Registration on 31.5.71 birth pangs will be
the subject matter of the next episode.

AUX AMIS PRESENTS ET FUTURS

Un bref apercu historique.

   Fondé en 1962, Kripaon Ki Mata devait être un “ Home” pour lépreux, récupérés, mendiants dans les rues de Meerut, Chef lieu du Diocese. Une assistante sociale Allemande, Miss Agnès Kunze, se trouvant disponible, I’évêque de Meerut lui confia le soin des 30 lépreux de sa ville sur ce qui devait  être une annexe au cimetière avoisinant: I ha de terrain érodé situé sur la pente, menant au lit d’une rivière usuellement à sec.
   Après avoir obtenu l’aide du D.A.H.W. (Fondation Allemande pour l’aide aux lépreux,) construit la première baraque, et s’être installée dans un contact permanent avec les lépreux et leurs problèmes, Agnès commence à prévoir une occupation moins déprimante et plus digne que d’attendre, au soleil (ou à l’ombre suivant la saison), les “chappatis” tomber toutes cuites dans la bouche, sans même avoir a faire l’effort de les mendier au bord de la route poussiéreuse et brûlante.
   Un technicien allemand, voulant passer quelques années de sa vie à aider concrètement les lépreux, arrive, fin 63, et trouve un petit bâtiment atelier, offert encore par la D.A.H.W. et se met au travail. Il cherche, étant donné l’insensibilité et les mutilations des extrémités des membres des lépreux, leurs capacités mentales et des considérations de bonne marche, la meilleure entreprise à déployer à grande échelle. Il expérimente successivement la fabrication de: Bougies, rubans tressés, articles tricotés à la machine: Filature à la Gandhi; Agriculture, Elevage de poulets. Finalement, ce sont les essais de filature et tissage qui s’avèrent les plus concluants. 3 métiers a tisser sont installés dans le petit atelier avec des fileuses: La machine est lancée……..
   Il dessine et construit lui-même un deuxième atelier plus grand, qui est juste terminé quand j’arrive en Sept. 67
   Les métiers à tisser et autres accessoires sont alors construits rapidement pour combler l’espace vide, et surtout pour pouvoir donner du travail aux lépreux blanchis, mais rejetés par la famille et la société qui cherchent désespérément du travail, mais qui se voient contraints de faire une carrière de mendiant.   
   Les anciens du début étant assez réticents pour travailler, la main d’oeuvre est surtout fournie par les nouveaux
La question centrale  :   Elle est humaine, bien sûr.
   C’est la réhabilitation des lépreux blanchis, Réhabilitation dans le sens de ré-intégration dans leurs vies propres, dans la cité ensuite.
   Notre initiative, étant très isolée, il ne peut pas être question de Réhabilitation dans la vie normale pour le moment, parce que cela suppose une éducation très longue des citoyens d’une part; et l’élimination chez les lépreux guéris de toute une foule de rancoeurs et complexes ; cela est notre terrain. Les psychoses individuelles – y compris les nôtres – demandent trop de temps (nous ne sommes que deux) pour être suivies et aidées efficacement.
   Les activités deviennent alors un moyen plus adéquat pour une Réhabilitation globale d’abord et individuelle ensuite grâce à la dignité du travail, le sens des responsabilités et la fierté de produire quelque chose de concret et d’utile.
   L’exemple des travailleurs “nouveaux” porta d’ailleurs des fruits puisque les “anciens mendiants” ne se sentent plus à l’aise sans travail et s’y mettent peu à peu.

Les problèmes actuels.

   “Produire, c’est bien; vendre c’est mieux”. Tel est notre souci actuel. Nous avons déjà préparé 2 expositions, mais le résultat a été de bien courte durée. Quelques 1000 tracts publicitaires ont été envoyés, n’appelant que quelques réponses.
   Grâce à nos amis Allemands et Anglais, l’année 1970 s’est bien terminée, mais des commandes sûres, espacées dans le temps seraient les bienvenues.
   Avec les 60 travailleurs d’à présent, les deux ateliers ne suffisent plus pour les héberger avec leurs machines et tout le stock des matériaux et des tissus.
   La charpente métallique et toît du nouvel atelier sont là et nous commençons juste à l’ériger, mais pour les murs etc… il nous faudra attendre une aide auxiliaire…
   Au programme immédiat est aussi l’aménagement intérieur pour l’électrification industrielle des ateliers et la mise en place d’un moteur faisant tourner une cardeuse à cotton et une machine à “twister” déjà en notre possession et, éventuellement, d’autres machines dans le futur.
   De tout cela, et de bien d’autres choses encore, dépend l’avenir des 80 lépreux blanchis d’à présent, qui doivent gagner leur pain, tout handicapés qu’ils sont.
   Sur le plan médical, la situation globale n’est pas aussi sérieuse. La plupart des lépreux sont blanchis et ne requièrent que des soins de routine et des pilules de dapsone prévenant tout récurrence de la maladie.
   Ceci n’est qu’un petit tour d’horizon incomplet. J’espère cependant qu’il suffira à éveiller l’intérêt et à créer des liens à renforcer par un dialogue à établir.
                                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                   Janvier 71, Pierre Reyniers.


















EXPERIMENT AND EXPERIENCE
FROM BEGGAR TO WORKER – A HISTORY OF TRANSFORMATION
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
     Preface
Ms Agnes Kunze,
General Secretary
KKM Handweaving
Booklet 1972
   After having been working during 10 years in a Leprosy Colony, known to not many people, we feel we have to inform a wider about our experiments in transforming a place, where work was a foreign word, into an industrial centre.

   We don’t intend to call this undertaking a “model”, as some people did, because we are aware that other situations call for different solutions of the problem. Still, a few of our experiences may be useful to other workers in the field of Rehabilitation, some seeds from our unexpected fruits may fall into ready soil, to bring fruit there too, in patience, for those who should not be deprived of them.

   Our present time, certainly, calls for a change of attitude: “The leper” should not be seen anymore as a mythical figure, nor should the Leprosy patient be treated as a mere object of medical science only. He is a man like you and I. Not this shadow is polluting the atmosphere, only our fear, which shall be dispelled when we go to meet him in a natural and practical human approach.

   There are several who have done so. Quite a few during these 10 years of our existence came here to give their service, their time, their work, their friendship, their heart. Some left disappointed that they could do so little, but all of them we can assure, that nothing of what they did was lost.

Divan Masih all round worker














































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