Volunteer Spotlight: Ruchi Khanna, Daughter of Jodhpur
Ruchi Khanna, a native of Jodhpur, India, and a member of the Sambhali U.S. Development and Communications Committees, knows how fortunate she is. Despite appallingly high rates of illiteracy and child marriage among women in Rajasthan, India, Ruchi, “had the privilege of being born in a family that was focused on education and was very pro-women,” she says. “We were aware of other perspectives in the villages surrounding Jodhpur, but we never experienced them ourselves.”
It is that foundation of empowerment that drives her current volunteer work with Sambhali U.S. She has begun monthly outreach to the women who attend the Sambhali Trust Fatima Empowerment Center in Jodhpur.
Growing up, Ruchi and her sister were always given the same opportunities as her brother. “My parents always motivated us,” she says.
After her parents married, Ruchi’s mother got her master’s degree in Education. “My father allowed my mother to pursue her master’s degree...,” she stops herself. “I shouldn’t even say ‘allowed.’ Because in his mind, it’s never like that, like it was his decision to make. If you were to ask my dad he always said, ‘It’s your mom’s decision or any girl’s. It is their own decision whatever they want to pursue in life. There’s no point in allowing or not allowing it because it’s their life. They get to make the decisions.’”
With her master’s in Education, Ruchi’s mother opened a K-10th grade nonprofit school in Jodhpur for area children to attend. Ruchi and her siblings saw the direct benefit of getting an education, both from their mother and the children who attended her school.
“What I learned from my parents was that to be able to give back, you must have it in you. For you to be able to educate people, you need to be educated yourself. You need experiences in your life that you can share with people.”
With that support and encouragement, Ruchi studied for an undergraduate degree in engineering in Jodhpur, then received a master’s degree at a university in Delhi. Soon after, she was chosen for a competitive internship with the Pan American Health Organization in Washington, DC. After returning to India for a few years, she moved back to the U.S. with her new husband, Tushar. Today they live in California with their two-year-old son Rayaan, and Ruchi works for U.S. Bank.
“It was a different household I grew up in. I was never held back on anything. And that makes me motivated to help these women because I feel like, ‘If I had it, why don’t they have it?’”
This past March, Ruchi was able to return to Jodhpur after Covid kept her away for several years. Also there at the same time was Sambhali U.S. president Shereen Arent. Shereen showed Ruchi around various Sambhali centers, including the Fatima Empowerment Center.
“It was a joy to visit Sambhali Trust projects with Ruchi and watch the instant connection between her and the teachers and participants—as they laughed and learned from each other,” observed Shereen.
Ruchi explained how they decided to move that connection forward: “Shereen and I had a thought that it would be good to have someone who is closely connected to the women, who knows the local dialect, the language they speak, the city, and the customs to have a communication channel open. So we came up with the idea for me to meet with them via online methods such as Zoom and phone calls on a regular basis.” Ruchi hopes to take the information she gathers from her conversations to help foster a better understanding of these women’s lives for the followers and supporters of Sambhali U.S.