Message from the President - Persistence and Growth

Nevertheless, she persisted.

It has been five years since Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell used this phrase to defend his effort to silence Senator Elizabeth Warren on the Senate floor. Five years since the phrase became a proud rallying cry for feminists. On this anniversary of sorts, I’ve realized how well it describes this time in the lives of the women and girls of Sambhali.  

We’ve talked a lot about resilience throughout this pandemic and the ability of Sambhali programs to grow despite—and sometimes to directly address—the impact of the pandemic. The expansion of the Nirbhaya gender-based violence project, the computer training for the boarding home girls, and the excellent workshops created by local staff, are just a few accomplishments during this challenging time.  

But it has been almost two years since the pandemic began, and while resilience, the ability to recover quickly—to spring back from adversity—was essential, it was not enough. We also need persistence, the firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action despite difficulty or opposition. And if obstinance suggests stubbornness, so be it. Because if we are not to lose years of progress in the fight for gender equity it will take every bit of our collective stubbornness. 

The UN Secretary-General’s policy brief on the impact of Covid-19 on women at the onset of the pandemic summed up what has been seen since:  

The pandemic is deepening pre-existing inequalities, exposing vulnerabilities in social, political and economic systems which are in turn amplifying the impacts of the pandemic. 

Across every sphere, from health to the economy, security to social protection, the impacts of COVID-19 are exacerbated for women and girls simply by virtue of their sex.  

After last year’s horrific COVID-19 wave, UN Women reported on the impact of the pandemic on Indian women and girls. The economic picture is grim. As a result of the first lockdown, only 7% of men lost their jobs compared with 47% of women who lost employment and did not return to work at the end of the year. During the next wave, rural women in informal jobs accounted for 80% of job losses. The rise in gender-based violence is terrifying. At the beginning of the pandemic, India recorded a 2.5 times increase in domestic violence.  

As for the future:   

UN Women data also show that more girls than boys were left out of school during the pandemic and 65% of parents surveyed were reluctant to continue the education of girls and resorting to child marriages to save costs.  

Though the pandemic continues, and the data continues to be collected and analyzed, now is the time to muster everything we can to move forward. 

Which brings me back to how persistence is seen every day at Sambhali Trust: 

It is in the heart of every woman who leaves her home to attend an empowerment center with the goal of providing for herself and her family. To allow for social distancing, only half of the students attend each day, but the women wait patiently for their turn.  

It is on the minds of the boarding home girls who learned the skills they needed to continue their educations remotely while schools have been closed for most of the pandemic. Persistence is front and center for the six girls at the Sheerni Boarding Home who soon will take the all-important 12th class board exams that determine whether they graduate from secondary school and their placement in college. They have faced many challenges during the crucial last two years of their education. But then again, they have faced enormous obstacles their whole lives.  

 It is in the courage of a survivor of gender-based violence who calls Sambhali Trust’s Nirbhaya self-help line and uses all the psychological counseling, legal services, and other supports offered because she refuses to live in pain and fear. 

There is a special kind of persistence in building for the future, not just trying to hold on to what we have—especially now.  

In the next few months, the sounds of hammers and saws will be heard from the top floor of Sambhali House as renovations create space for six new college students to join the five currently living in the Abhayasthali Boarding Home. It will be the blissful sound of persistence.  

Rumblings also will be heard in the city of Jaisalmer, in western Rajasthan near the Pakistani border, where Sambhali Trust is expanding its programs. Govind Rathore introduced this expansion to supporters during the same Zoom meeting where we heard about contingency plans for the Omicron wave that was just beginning to hit India. I couldn’t help but think: Is this the right time? But I realized persistence isn’t satisfied simply by continuing to just get back to where we were when the pandemic began. Persistence means that despite it all—and because of it all—we find ways to grow.  

Building a new dormitory for the young women in college and expanding to new neighborhoods so in need of what Sambhali Trust has to offer—this is the making of persistence. 

Women and girls who defy the odds and choose to believe in their futures every day that they walk into a Sambhali program—these are the faces of persistence. 

And the embrace of persistence? This is what you, the Sambhali family in the United States, demonstrate when you listen with full hearts to the stories of the women and girls of Sambhali, when you volunteer for Sambhali U.S., and when you generously donate to the future of these determined women and girls. You persist when you believe that their dreams, though already so precarious, will not be lost in the pandemic. You persist when the UN statistics become your call to action. 

And for that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart,