Mayer Tori is the name of the local organisation in Bangladesh.
Our ongoing aim is to preserve a kind of singing and playing, and the tunes and texts played and sung, in a northern region of Bangladesh. The effort aims in part at creating an archive. But the main purpose is to pass the knowledge of the elders to young people.
We have established a collective of singers and musicians devoted to teaching children whom they know by name, and whose life situations they know. The children know that they are known by other adults than their own family members.
For teaching to take place, the extended family and the village must participate. The very process of teaching and being taught is collective in more ways than one.
Our region is a land of rivers: Brahmaputra, Tizta, Dhorla and more. Floods are common in Kurigram, Lalmonirhat, Nilphamari. People farm, fish, do day labour, or run small businesses. The region is the most flood- prone as well as the poorest in the country, far away from the capital, Dhaka. The Hindu minority is considerable, maybe a fifth of the population. Among our children, there is a majority from Hindu families, and most of them are girls. At present, teaching takes place in eight villages.
Each informal song-and-music school is run by two teachers, in most cases one for voice/song and one for rhythm. Some village elders with instruments drop in to participate. The place of learning, with or without walls, is located close to the home of one of the teachers. The teaching – which is free – takes place twice a week, on Thursdays and Fridays, each time for about three hours.
All the teachers come together every other month, some from far away. They stay in frequent touch by phone. Three teachers co-ordinate the project on a full-time basis. They visit one another ́s schools, as well as other schools, and evaluate the commitment and performance of local teachers and students.
“I am very lucky to be a part of the boat class. Here, we learn many songs. Most importance and attention is put on the songs by Lalan. In those songs, there are many important things that are taught to us. The teachers show us the way.”
— A boy in Torir Class
The boat class is a special class with monthly meetings for the most dedicated young who have been with us for a long time and want to stay with the work. They may becomes teachers.
In Bangladesh, they meet at least one Saturday every month. They talk about life and difficulties, sing and play music together, learn new songs, talk about the song text, and eat together. Some of them also have teaching tasks with the smaller children.