Monday, February 15, 2010

More Feb 2010 News

Dear Friends, 

I am sorry for a late update, have been quite occupied and couldnt spare time for the blog. I thank all of those who write to me, those who know me and those who don't. Your remarks mean a lot to me.
Month of February has been more exciting than the other months.
Sambhali Trust:
Our Graduate Ms. Lajwanti got married and our Art and Craft expert Ms. Tamanna got married. They looked so pretty in their wedding dresses.
Ms. Tamanna and her Husband!
16.02.10
Ms. Lajwanti and her Husband!
14.02.10
Ms. Tamanna & her Sister, Ms. Renu got married on the same day (sisters in the picture)

Four ladies from the women travel group from Switzerland visited the project
15.02.2010, our second group from this company. 


We have started to work on Governments given program Priyadarshini Adarsh Savya Sahayata Samooh Project in which Government of Rajasthan has given us Jodhpur Districts 10 best self help groups to train them into better practices of record maintaining, earning money, be aware of social problems and work on the solutions etc. We have conducted meeting for all the 10 Government SHG’s leaders, Government District officials, and our staff.

Meeting on 18.02.10

We conducted pre-evaluation of the 10 self help groups, for this we went to meet with the women involved in this program. we went 6 days for 10 self help groups to meet 110 women, we found out a lot of problems why government has not been very successful in this program, we hope that we can work on the perfection of these 10 SHG’s and bring a model in their way of working that the Department looking after the Self Help group programs can follow this principal and run other programs accordingly.

My very good friend Rachel brought 8 of her guest to visit the trust and also to have lunch with the girls; it was a nice cultural exchange between guest from New Zealand and our girls. I have been assisting rachel for last seven years, looking after her groups in Jodhpur, from hotel reservation to sight seeing etc.
24.February 2010
Rachel's group at the hotel, enjoying the Folk Gypsy Dance.
Rachel's group and myself went to see Mac Beth by William Shakespeare at the Mehrangarh Fort.
Rachel with the Jodhpur project girls
Rachel and the group dancing with the our participants.
Every 15 days the staff meeting has been of great success, volunteers, teachers and the Trust members get together and discuss on how we can make the programs run more professionally and practically, we share our views of our work and discuss problems.
Setrawa project is doing well, Ms. Nora our volunteer is doing good, some pictures from her work in Setrawa.
We celebrated our Holi festival with our project participants in Jodhpur on the 27th of February.

Jodhpur Electronic media interviewing our volunteer Ms. Natalie about her views on Valentines day.
14.02.10


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Sambhali Trust, Sheerni micro-credit project
14-02-2010

Setrawa village
Today, Ma’am Jacqueline de chollet visited the Sheerni project in Setrawa, she is the builder of our motivation to the project. Since many years Ms. De Chollet has been working with the Women Empowerment and we have a lot to learn from her experience.
The women of Setrawa are fortunate to meet and interact with a person like herself who came to the village to know the situation and understand the problems women have personally.
First of all women welcomed Ma’am with the red vermillion and Shawl, they sang traditional welcoming songs, ma’am looked very happy.
With the help of Govind Singh rathore, Founder of the Sambhali Trust, Ma’am got her questions and answers translated.
Women spoke to Ma’am about their problems and solutions. Ma’am also purposed girl children to go to school and invited some girls on her level to come to Jodhpur for those who are unable to attend the school in the village.
Women want to become financially independent of Setrawa by perfecting themselves with the help of professional trainer and there was lot of discussion related to it, for example women wanted to do papad, dry preservative snacks making, tie and dye, sewing, embroidery and keeping milk cows.
Women have desire to start their own production and with the help of administrator want to find a better market.
Sheerni project aims to give little credit to help for small scale business set up until the SHG’s have joined with the bank credit system on the bank’s criteria, which would take another year.
In this meeting we invited the newly elected Sarpanch, Mr. Bheeka ram Choudhary, an other backward caste (OBC) a middle aged Gentleman. He is a strong candidate of the village with modern views, believes and supports women empowerment.
He gave us ideas of how to promote and motivate our mission of Sheerni project and its participants with the help of t.v shows, document films and should bring idol SHG members inside our Sheerni project for introduction, awareness and motivation.
He also wants to help by giving the trust some land where the trust could carry forward its work instd of renting a building in Setrawa.
Women spoke very freely with him about their other problems of water, electricity, hygiene, caste identity certificates etc.
Because of the Sambhali Trust Sheerni project women had chance to mingle with the male Sarpanch for the first time.
We also invited the Bank manager of UCO Bank in Setrawa Mr. P.C.Meena,
He spoke about the programs his bank is running for SHG’s and about the processing between bank and SHG linkage on loaning system.
He also said that bank gives subsidy to SHG individuals after noticing and grading the SHG members and their SHG.
He gave information on other SHG’s running in the villages that are in grip of one or two women of the group and he also informed that no other SHG has ever taken credit for business and have not returned money on time.
He also promised any help from the bank at any time for our Model we have operated for our SHG’s.
Mr. Meena said that the UCO bank has been awarded for working very successfully with the SHG’s.
We Invited Mr. Kanwar Raj Singh who has been keeping a very close eye on the Sheerni project in Setrawa and has taken great interest, he has been present in each program and meeting since the establishment of the Sheerni project in Setrawa and monitors it as an outsider, he speaks well about our programs in the newspaper which motivated the villages around Setrawa to know more about our project and its work.
All the ladies and guest had refreshments together and were very happy to have been there on this occasion, after Ma’am Jacqueline de chollet and the guest left, Ms. Manju Mehta the administrator had meeting about the workshops for the Sheerni project participants and they decided that women of the groups will be sent out or professionals will be brought in for the training of sewing, embroidery etc and these trained women will be teaching the other Sheerni participants, this way the whole village can become part of the evolution process.
For our ambition with the Sambhali Trust Sheerni micro-credit project, we look forward to Ma’am Jacqueline de chollet’s support in any possible way in the battle of women empowerment.

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Ms. Divya and Ms. Khushbu, Students of National institute of fashion design went to give sewing workshop to the Sheerni project participants of Setrawa. 12th Feb/2010


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First Impression.
Ms. Nora Dilling, Frankfurt, Germany.
January-March 2010
Setrawa, two weeks impression!
The past two weeks have given me many new impressions and I have experienced so much that I do not know where to begin.
My first arrival in Setrawa was very rough. It began when I went to the house where I would be living for the coming two months. The house looked very basic and compared to the living standards back at home it looked all so primitive. At the same time it is also a great adventure to get the experience of living with an Indian family in a village in the middle of the desert. My host family is very loving and they take good care of me. In the beginning we had to get to know each other and understand each others cultures. We found our way of communicating and they really involve me into their lives. I learned how to make some Indian dishes and got involved in their daily routine.
The language barrier is a bit of a problem… We can not have long conversations. Communicating with little English and little Hindi makes it interesting and also fun!
The school of Sambhali Trust is a nice simple building next to my house.
The children are very enthusiastic for learning English and open for new volunteers. Happy faces and ready to learn some English or play games, these are the things I really enjoy about these children. Some of the children are very introvert and shy. They need some extra guidance and empowerment. I have so many ideas what I want to do with the school. I want to make workshops for the children and art classes to improve their social skills and their self esteem. The team of Sambhali Trust is very motivated, we are brainstorming on what different classes we can do and support each others ideas. From Monday till Friday I am alone in Setrawa, but at the same time I feel that I have a great support back in Jodhpur.
The school starts at 11am till 1pm for the sewing class and girls that don’t go to government school. There are not many girls coming to this class, we have to try to motivate them and get them back in the routine.
From 4:30pm till 6pm is my class and I have all the creativity to make it how I want it to be. Around 25 children show up. In between the two classes I have spare time. I use this to prepare the lesson, drink chai with the neighbors and do yoga.
My second week has been much easier than the first. I am finding my space and really getting to enjoy the village lifestyle.

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