(This post is by our India Field Director, Sushil Marandi, about our fall volunteer trip to his home village):
I could see the joy and excitement among the people in my village, Dhoker Jhara. September 29th to October 3rd, 2009 was an amazing week for them.
For the first time in their lives they saw the ‘white’ people from the other side of the world working with them. My people usually call white people ‘Saheb’ which means ‘Boss’ due to India’s history of colonialism. They never imagined that these Saheb would get dirty digging a water resevoir side-by-side with them.
The Work
It was a great honor for us to have the GHNI Compassion Team join us. We had 11 people from different parts of the world come and work along with the TCD (Transformational Community Development) Committee of Dhoker Jhara. Global Hope Network International has adopted this village to demonstrate a model of TCD in India.
Like most villages in India, the main source of income is agriculture. Farmers completely depend upon the fall monsoon rain for their crops. As a result they have only one crop a year. So unless they learn ways to irrigate during the rest of the year, they cannot produce more crops and will stay in the same poverty they have always known.
The volunteer team and villagers worked very hard together through the heat to help dig an irrigation retention resevior. They also gave the village a water pump to irrigate the fields from the reservoir during the dry months. It was a great start!
Fun Time
We also wanted to have some fun time with the team and villagers. Therefore, we arranged a sports and football (soccer) tournament. We had football teams from 16 different villages take part in this event. Prizes for the football tournament were two goats and three ducks. It may sound funny, but this is how they do it! We also had sports for different age groups. This all-day program drew around 5000 villagers.
We had the Ex-Deputy Chief Minister of Jharkhand (our state), Prof. Stephen Marandi, as an honorable chief guest. He was very encouraged by what we are doing and agreed to help us in such projects in the future. He was so happy, he invited the volunteer team for dinner at his home the next day.
Nutan and I would like to thank all the team members who came to serve our people, and to those of you who give so generously to see change in India. I can assure you that you are a part of making a history on this side of the world.
Sushil & Nutan Marandi
GHNI India Field Manager
The new year is already knocking at the door, let it will bring only happiness and joy.
Posted by: JOBS_frend | 26 December 2010 at 11:50 PM