Volunteer Spotlight
Finding Joy on the Road to Helping
By Ellie Hamburger
When I first learned that my friend Shereen Arent had become involved with a nonprofit in India dedicated to empowerment of women and girls, my interest was piqued. Having recently retired from my career as a pediatrician and medical educator, I was ready to explore ways in which I could learn from and contribute my skills to just such an organization.
When I reached Shereen and learned more, I wondered with her whether I could, perhaps, collaborate with the Sambhali team to develop workshops on health topics for the boarding home girls and women in the Empowerment Centers.
After discussing it with Founder Govind Rathore, Shereen suggested I join her on her next visit to Sambhali to learn more and to explore the possibilities. My husband and I had traveled to Rajasthan and elsewhere in India once before, and I was eager to go back. But nothing in my prior experience prepared me for what I found at Sambhali this past February.
My journey there took me to the boarding homes in Jodhpur, and to the Empowerment Centers and Primary Education Centers in Jodhpur, Setrawa, and Jaisalmer. In each place I visited, I saw the joy of the children and women – joy in learning, in caring for each other, in their sense of community. I learned from the energetic, dedicated teachers in the Empowerment Centers of their own journeys to overcome obstacles and the gratification they take in their roles in helping the women of their communities do the same.
I watched as the older girls in the boarding homes sewed uniforms and cooked meals for their younger housemates and heard about their academic successes and career plans. I met former boarding home girls, now women with advanced degrees and careers they had never dreamed they could even aspire to. I spoke to mothers who had sent their daughters some distance away to live in the boarding homes and get the education that they knew would give them opportunities otherwise unattainable. I witnessed the pride that students and graduates of the training program take in their newly-acquired skills – gaining literacy, life skills, and the ability to earn their own living.
Above all, this small organization keeps its mission front and center in everything it does. It is remarkably nimble in responding with dignity and love to needs as they arise with services such as mental health counseling, legal services, enrollment in government services, and fair and just commercial relationships with merchants in the marketplace for graduates.
Struck by this impressive vision and scope of Sambhali’s services, how, I wondered, can I contribute here? After speaking to Sambhali leadership and working with Rajshree Rathore and Vimlesh Solanki, leads in educational services for Sambhali, we developed a list of possible topics for health education workshops. Rajshree then vetted the list with teachers and women at the Centers. Now, I am busy researching and drafting workshops to bring back to the team at Sambhali for feedback and implementation, an effort in which I’ve been joined by another recently retired pediatrician and new Sambhali U.S. volunteer, Dr. Meera Raghunathan. We hope to begin implementation after a return visit to Jodhpur next winter.
It is humbling to see how the team at Sambhali Trust has such a positive impact on the lives it touches with remarkably few resources. And while my contribution has yet to fully take shape, there is one thing that is not in doubt. I certainly look forward to continuing this journey.
