Volunteer Spotlight:
Far Flung Fact-finding Finds a Home at Sambhali U.S.
by Carlea Bauman
Barbara Epp
Harini Varadarajan
Riya Mydur
A trio of volunteers spanning three continents—North American, Asia, and Europe—help Sambhali U.S. gather information that supports its social media, newsletters, grant requests, and other forms of outreach.
Barbara Epp, an American living in Germany, and Harini Varadarajan and Riya Mydur, an Indian mother/daughter team currently living in Houston, Texas, but spending the summer visiting friends and family in India, work together to research statistics on women and other social issues in India. The information they glean is then used by Sambhali U.S. and Sambhali Trust to drive home the importance of Sambahli’s work.
The statistics they hunt down focus on the education of women, literacy rates, domestic violence, and maternal and women’s health within India. Barbara mines data from international institutions like the World Bank and the United Nations, while Harini and Riya find sources within India. “The international agencies have an overwhelming amount of data, but most of it is nationwide. The challenge is to find information broken down for the state of Rajasthan, and even more specifically for the communities served by Sambhali,” states Barbara.
“India is a vast country, and a lot is going on. The information gathered by the research team is critical in helping our supporters understand what is happening in India and why Sambhali’s work is essential.”
For Harini, the work is personal. “As a woman who has grown up in India with many of the social norms, and double standards, I’m happy to see such wonderful changes and to be a part of Sambhali contributing to this change.”
The wide range of time zones does not seem to faze them. Barbara in Germany is 6 hours ahead of the Sambhali U.S. team on the east coast – except for a few weeks this summer when Barbara visited family in Maryland. And this summer Harini and Riya in India are 3 ½ hours ahead of Barbara but then return to Central Time in the U.S. “Thanks to the availability of text messages and calling, it has made it much more accessible and easier to communicate,” states Riya, while Barbara credits Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Harini strikes a beatific tone, “The team is most helpful and cooperative and are so passionate about their work that it all works out perfectly.”