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David Green, Director-General of the British Council, speaks to ANJANA RAJAN about how the arts can change life and how his organisation is changing with the times.
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With half a million pounds sterling spread across 10 countries, we have to be very targeted in our spending DAVID GREEN
MUTUALITY IS THE KEY David Green at the British Council in New Delhi PHOTO: V.V. KRISHNAN
Match the activities of the British Council with the CV of its Director-General David Green, and it seems you couldn't have got a better pair if the gentleman had made it all up! A background in development work and education, a varied experience of working with young people, an interest in theatre arts and painting...if ever there was a perfect combination, this seems to be it. On a brief trip to India this week to meet the staff and renew his acquaintance with a region he has visited seven times since 1968, Green laughs, "I have all the right interests, I don't know about the competence."
The smile sits amiably on his bearded visage. It is the kind of self-deprecating wit we associate with the British. Speaking of which, Green's job is also about building mutual understanding between cultures. In today's world, this objective of the 70-year-old British Council has become an imperative, perhaps more so in the U.K., which has been living with multi-culturalism since long before the term was coined. Green, at the helm of affairs at the Council since 1999, can be expected to have a unique perspective on this issue, involved as he is in the arts and having started his career as a teacher of art and music in a comprehensive school.
Better promotion
The Director-General, who believes strongly in the critical role played by the creative arts in education, as well as the power of the arts to convey important social messages, finds the U.K. has become "a creative hub" where artists of Asian origin are playing a significant role. Yet, while the school curriculum has expanded to increase awareness of other cultures among the young, he concedes, "I don't think they have as much understanding of India as they should."
Yet the visibility is high, and the arts especially are making their mark, whether at the prestigious Edinburgh Festival or London's theatre district, says Green, commenting, "Your Government is getting better at promoting itself in the U.K."
Noting that India enjoys "a very high profile," he enumerates areas like IT, in which its capabilities are recognised. As part of its endeavour to move with the times while retaining its founding objectives of mutual cooperation and understanding between the U.K. and other countries, the Council has targeted this high computer literacy with enhanced online services such as databases, as well as developing free resource materials for teaching subjects like English online.
Green's term at the Council has been characterised by a focus on the young. "What we recognise is that with half a million pounds sterling spread across 10 countries, we have to be very targeted in our spending, so we aim at the successor generation, what in India are called the aspirer generation. In India we are looking at the 18 to 35 age group," explains the former Director, Volunteer Services Overseas, a post he held for a decade before joining the Council.But it's not just about awarding scholarships and artists' residencies, though educational exchanges seem high on the agenda. Green points out, "I think we should be doing more to encourage students to study here. One of the aims of the India Education Initiative is to do this. We're talking about joint PhD programmes or people spending time in Indian universities."
Global Xchange
An exciting people-to-people programme, or "increasing mutuality" as the phrase goes, is the Global Xchange. Under this programme, an equal number - usually 18 to 20 - of young people from the U.K. and the partner country, aged between 18 and 25, work together over a three-month period in each country on development-related projects. The Global Xchange's first project in India is currently underway in the village of Anjanisen in the Garhwal Himalayas, Uttaranchal, where nine volunteers from the U.K. and nine from India have been working since early November on a series of projects. In February, the group will go to Scotland for three months. One of the major objectives of the programme is to increase familiarity with each other's cultures. Thus the volunteers are accommodated with host families in either country.
"This is a very powerful programme," states Green, "something I started when I was in the VSC."
Cheers to people's power then. And here's to many more Green revolutions!
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