Kanthari

(Inspiring Social initiative)

Kanthari is a Malayalam word which means “spicy chilli” or “mischievous child”
The world according to Kanthari:
Imagine a turning disk, a group of people standing in the middle, holding tight onto a pole which turns slowly in ever lasting circles to an easy, almost tranquilizing tune. Everything is in order. Each person feels safe and secure, looking forever at the same back, the same neck that moves at the same pace, on the same path as himself. Once in a while one or the other dares to look to the edges of the disk. What he sees is disturbing, but not disturbing enough to break off the connection to the pole. Not enough to go and change. Moving on a foreseen path is too comforting. Disconnecting from the middle could mean danger.
Imagine life on the edge. Spinning energy, crashes, explosions. Some are falling over the edges and disappear, others dance on the margins and celebrate existence and survival. One or the other dares a look to the middle and what they see is disturbing, disturbing enough to question, to provoke, to alarm and to alert.

Kanthari envisions a world influenced by social change makers, “Kantharis”. These are visionaries, creative and critical thinkers. They have the guts to question the middle, the mainstream. They are doers who have the resilience, the drive and the intrinsic interest to intervene, to awaken, to spice, to stir up the status quo, and thus to create ethical social change.

But Who are these Kantharis?
Picture a new and at the same time very traditional type of leader. A person who grew strong on the margins of society, a person empowered by compassion, constructive anger and adversity, a person who allows him/herself to challenge the mainstream, who is able to ignite an idea which starts a chain reaction of mindset-changes, a person who stirs up questionable common grounds.

Examples of Kantharis: “a small Chili can make a big difference”
Jayn Waitera from Kenya is white while her brothers and sisters are black. She is an albino, she lacks the skin color melanin which makes her sensitive to the sunlight. But the sun is not her only enemy, she is endangered to be hunted and killed by witch doctors who collect body-parts of albinos as lucky charms.
Jayne could hide away as many albinos do. But instead she goes public, is fighting for the right to live. In conferences and talk-shows she shifts paradigms and transforms concepts by saying: “don’t judge us on our skin color! We are beautiful, and we belong! no matter what you say!”
Jayn is a lioness who doesn’t shy away in order to protect her peers. She ends her graduation speech addressing Tanzanian and Kenyan politicians and witch doctors: “If you think we are so special, you should not kill us, you should preserve us!”

Kyila was raised in a remote village on the Tibetan plateau. Her father, her twin brothers and Kyila are born blind. Villagers believe that the family was cursed. “Children didn’t want to play with us”, Kyila says, “adults would throw old food on our doorstep.”
Today Kyila is the founder and principle of the first integrative kindergarten in China. Here she teaches blind and sighted children to become “confident, critical and alert little thinkers”.
“I want to prove that blindness is not a punishment! I am educated, I have traveled the world and I am the richest woman in my village, and this because I am blind.”

Johnson from Liberia has witnessed a brutal civil war. “I have seen women and children being killed in public, I have seen torture, rape and I have seen people cutting of legs and arms.” Johnson was disabled and almost killed by explosives. “If I look at our children who have never witnessed anything else but war and violence, I ask myself, is there a future for this country?” He stops and thinks, and then he jumps up and says: “Yes! there is a future, because we survived!”
To provide a future to Liberia, Johnson plans to support victims of war, people with disabilities by providing education and special aids.

Kantharis in every part of the world:
Current and future world challenges caused by tension between mainstream and margin, “middle” and “edge”, challenges like hunger, exclusion, discrimination and pollution need intervention by individual problem solvers who are able to detect the urgency for ethical social change.

Kanthari envisions igniting a worldwide evolving network of social initiators and initiatives which address and solve new and old, local and global challenges in a creative and unconventional way.
Kanthari envisions this centre in Kerala to be used as a springboard which catapults socially and globally relevant innovative ideas, visions, paradigm shifts into reality.