Kashmira & Afreen, two FAR scholarship students, use their education to support our teaching staff
Sarwar Khan,
Co-Founder & Co-Director
Merasi Sarwar Khan is the Director of Lok Kala Sagar Sansthan, an NGO dedicated to Merasi cultural preservation and social empowerment. He is a master drummer who has performed on three continents and a visionary artist with exhibits at the American Visionary Art Museum and the Vermont Studio Center. In 2008, Sarwar received an honorary doctorate from the Maine College of Art. Sarwar can be reached at 011-91-982-863-2318.
Karen Lukas,
Advisory Consultant/Executive Director, Folk Arts Rajasthan
Artist Karen Lukas, founder and director of Folk Arts Rajasthan, (FAR), has collaborated nearly two decades with Sarwar Khan and the Merasi of Jaisalmer District to empower their folk arts heritage. The NGO, Lok Kala Sagar Sansthan (LKSS) & FAR have created a community hub to preserve this rare endangered musical legacy. The FAR/LKSS partnership creates musical archives, produces international tours, sponsors the educational projects Merasi School & Music Merasi plus six scholarships, and powers a small women's fair trade initiative.
Founding Co-director Caitie Whelan is currently hard at work on Capitol Hill and has passed the baton of the Merasi School Project to our new co-director of education; Pamela Pelizzari.
We gratefully welcome Pamela into her new role and extend deep thanks to Caitie for years of devoted efforts.
Karen can be reached at karen@folkartsrajasthan.org.
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The Staff
Classroom Teaching Staff
Shashi (Little Class), Shama (Middle Class) and Kanklata (Big Class) compose the classroom teaching staff at the Merasi School. Though these women live in the same neighborhood where the Merasi School stands, they are worlds removed from the Merasi experience. Each comes from a higher caste granted access to education and social opportunity. Shashi, Shama and Kanku are singular in their willingness to teach and engage with Merasi children, whom many higher castes view as social pollution. These exceptional women are enabling Merasi children to build the compassionate, constructive knowledge bases necessary to become the future teachers and leaders in the Merasi community. We can’t thank them enough for the visionary service they are providing to Merasi children. Photo courtesy of Karen Lukas
Gumsa Khan,
Murli Instructor
Music Merasi’s newest guru, Gumsa Khan, is 18 years old and a surviving son of murli master Murid Khan. He has practiced much since arriving at LKSS, and his rapid improvement in murli-playing has earned him a position teaching younger Merasi the art of playing this endangered instrument. Thanks to the generous support of our donors, we are in possession of 15 new murlis at Music Merasi and are excited that Gumsa has risen to the task of instructing a new generation of Merasi in the art of this endangered instrument. We look forward to hearing the sound of these murlis throughout the halls of Music Merasi in the coming years. Photo courtesy of Karen Lukas
Rasul Khan,
Master All Around Musician
Master all around musician Rasul Khan is a member of the Merasi community who has wholly devoted himself to the education of the next generation of Merasi. Rasul teaches with passion, focus and care, and the children attending Music Merasi are lucky to call him their guru. He has been to America twice as a troupe member in Folk Arts Rajasthan's first and second Hearts with Hope Tours promoting cultural understanding. We’re confident that his combination of skill and performance experience will inspire a new generation of Merasi to preserve their musical legacy and share it far and wide, just as Rasul has himself done. Photo courtesy of Karen Lukas
Jebuneesha Banu,
Maintenance Coordinator
Jebuneesha oversees The Merasi School building and classroom maintenance. She is a self-taught businesswoman who runs Women4Women, Folk Arts Rajasthan's fair trade collective, a devoted mother of five children and a fierce advocate for education. Every week, she recruits and manages students to take ownership of their education by cleaning their workspaces and caring for their classroom materials. Photo courtesy of Karen Lukas
The Merasi School is proud to be the educational branch of Folk Arts Rajasthan, (FAR) an American nonprofit that works in concert with Lok Kala Sagar Sansthan, a Non-Governmental Organization in India run by and for the Merasi community, to promote their mutual missions of Merasi empowerment.
Find out more about FAR by clicking here!
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Pamela Pelizzari,
Co-Director
Pamela hails from Chicago and majored in Applied Math-Biology and Community Health at Brown University. When not busy co-directing our desert classroom, Pamela works in research for the Center for Population Health and Clinical Epidemiology at Brown University. She can be reached at pamela@merasischool.org.
Young Merasi women going to the Jaisalmer market
Co-Founder's Note
I never intended to start a school in India. I planned to go to Broadway and get my name in lights. But, during time off from college, I interned with Folk Arts Rajasthan, and life took a turn for the unpredicted.
As I worked with the Merasi, the narrowness of my original plans was thrown into harsh relief against the expanse of human need. My effortless access to education, healthcare and political representation was worlds removed from the Merasi experience of bitter marginalization.
I had a choice: I could return to my stable American life or I could collaborate with the Merasi to draft a blue print for change. We each have the capacity to write the narrative of our times and this was an opportunity to contribute. We opened our doors in 2007. Since that day, change has echoed in our classrooms. Who said small couldn't be mighty?
Caitie Whelan, Co-Founder
Caitie Whelan,
Co-Founder
Caitie has been working with the Merasi since 2004. Building off of Folk Arts Rajasthan's successful educational initiatives, she and Sarwar co-founded The Merasi School in the summer of 2007.
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