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CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT FOR TRAINING DALITS TOWARDS LIBERATION
The Curriculum Development Meeting for training Dalits towards liberation was held on the 24th April 2007 at Gurukul, Chennai. With the mandate from the Dalit Task Force to call for a meeting in discussing the systematic curriculum for training Dalits and Local Congregations, the meeting had a fruitful deliberations and discussions.
Dr. K. Rajaratnam, Chairperson, NCCI-Commission on Dalits and Adivasis explained the need for the curriculum, and has expressed the hope that the local congregations shall be benefited by the module of curriculum. Dr. I. John Mohan Razu, member of Dalit Task Force presented a draft module of curriculum and it was received with appreciation. He said that the over-arching objective of this curriculum is to help the participants to use the biblical and non-biblical materials for the liberation of Dalits in India. The objectives of this curriculum are:
- To help the participants become more familiar with major streams on liberation motiffs.
- To facilitate participants to critically examine some of the theological and biblical assumption underlying the whole gamut of liberation motiffs.
- To equip participants to critically examine and analyse the relationship or the inter-connectedness between the socio-economic, politico-cultural and religious dimensions, with the help of biblical and sociological tools of analysis.
To approach the issues from holistic perspectives especially from the abundant literatures/resources available in secular as well as in faith traditions. However, the over-arching objective of this workshop is to help the participants to use the biblical and non-biblical materials for the liberation of Dalits in India
Rev. Dr. Suneel Bhanu, Professor, Dalit Theology, Gurukul also expressed his views with regard to the curriculum, and expressed that this systematic curriculum, shall enrich the local congregations to strive for liberation in a more meaningful way. Rev. Dr. Mohan Larbeer, Principal of Tamil Nadu Theological College, who is also a member on the curriculum development, has sent his positive comments and suggestions to the curriculum.
It was decided to have two congregational empowerment programmes, one in the urban and one in the rural congregations, to experiment the formulated module.
Rev. Raj Bharath Patta,
Executive Secretary,
Commission on Dalits and Adivasis.
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