When Kindred Spirits and the Stars Align 

Niina Haas had never been to India before, but when two friends got married in Delhi in 2007, she and another friend decided to extend their visit to include other parts of the country. It was her stop in Jodhpur that would end up changing countless lives. The friends chose to stay in the home of a local family so that they could get a better sense of the country and its people. 

That family happened to include a man named Govind Rathore, who today is known as the founder of Sambhali Trust.  

Govind was “jovial, friendly, and welcoming,” Niina says, as he showed them around his beloved Jodhpur. At the end of each excursion, they would talk about the things they had seen that were troubling – the poverty, sickness, and lack of resources for women. Govind cared deeply about these issues and would tell them of his dream to start a nonprofit to address them. 

Both Niina and Govind were in their 20s, with not a lot of resources at their disposal. BUT. “Govind had the foresight and good ideas and I had a sense of, ‘Yeah, I can do something here.’” With Niina’s help, Govind was able to pay the legal fees needed to form a nonprofit and Sambhali Trust, celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, was born. A second visit about a year and a half later enabled Niina to work with Govind again and help push things along further by establishing bank accounts for the initial class of students. “There was an excitement of watching something take root,” she says. “I could see the potential. I could see that it was really going somewhere.” 

But Niina makes it clear that she, “was not the savior. I was the right tool in the hands of God.” And though she wanted to do more, she had a young daughter at home in Arizona and couldn’t stay. So, she bid farewell and has since watched Sambhali Trust flourish from afar for the past 15 years. “It was never a role for me to step in fully. I just said, ‘Here is the gas for your tank.’ Now I can stand back and say, ‘Wow. You are really doing an amazing job.’ I feel lucky to have been there.” 

Niina explains why Govind is such an amazing leader. “He listens to the people in the program, is continually assessing what needs to be done, and he’s remained flexible” to change according to the community’s needs. 

“What started as an initial empowerment group to help women learn skills and have some financial independence has grown into classes on things that women need to know, sending women to college, and going into villages and helping during the pandemic,” she says. 

Niina, who completed graduate work in anthropology and worked as a researcher at the University of Arizona, is today vice president at a health IT company. She feels grateful that her younger self “heard the message and was listening.”  

“When you think about 15 years, that is essentially a teenage girl, an adolescent girl who would have grown up in the span of when Sambhali was operating. And this girl would have grown up in an environment of empowerment, an environment of being taught and learning things and having skills and not being married off. I think that’s cool. That’s a whole life span for the people he’s helping.” 

Says Govind, “It was very motivational for me to have met Niina. I knew something big was in the making and she helped me believe it was possible. If a kindred spirit like her from across the globe joined hands with me, I was sure nothing would stop our pure intentions to support the downtrodden in our society.” 

A trip for a wedding, a chance booking at a guesthouse, a group of 20-somethings talking together. Then a seed was planted where today, 15 years later, a strong tree stands. We who can donate our time and our treasure rarely get to see the impact as directly as Niina has. But, like Niina, we know it is there, nurturing that strong tree.