Friday, September 04, 2009
Letter for Foundation for Sustainable Development (FSD) Team, Jodhpur
To Whom It May Concern
We would like to take this opportunity to reflect upon the Service Learning Trip and express our gratitude for your involvement and contributions.
Despite the issues faced, this venture has been a valuable experience for all involved. The contributions made by the students have been overwhelmingly positive and Sambhali Trust hopes to continue the projects they leave behind.
It has also been an honor for Sambhali Trust to be able to work with students from such a renowned university. It is of great benefit to us in terms of the skills shared and the awareness created for our organization.
We must acknowledge that this project would not have been possible without your support and in many other senses. FSD has been a reliable source of organization and information for both the students and Sambhali Trust.
As a small grass-roots organization it is a valuable opportunity to be able to work with an agency such as FSD. Your contributions have enabled us to continue our important work, and we thank you.
Warmest regards,
Sambhali Trust |
Letter to the team leader of SLT program
Friday, September 04, 2009
Letter of Reflection
SLT Group Team Leaders
Stanford University
Dear Student Leaders,
Sambhali Trust would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your time spent working with the project, as well as reflect upon the successfulness of this venture and address some of the issues that arose during this time. We extend all messages of gratitude to the group.
Firstly, we are grateful for the efforts and enthusiasm brought to the project. It is a privilege to have students come such a long way from an institution as well-known as Stanford University and we are honored that you chose our organization with which to work. It is a brave decision to leave one’s own culture in the hopes of understanding other parts of the world more fully, and noble to actively seek out humanitarian work. We hope that you have a better understanding of the role you as individuals can play, both here in Jodhpur and Setrawa, and back at home, as part of a vastly different but equally as significant society in terms of the issues you have seen here. It is important that you not forget the people, places, obstacles and joy that you have witnessed and experienced here. They are intricately connected to your own lives in many ways.
We understand that you have had to give up various comforts and much of your time to come to a place so immensely different from your home country, and have sometimes been disappointed or inconvenienced by the conditions or discoveries you have made. It is always difficult to get accustomed to a different place, different people and different customs, even within your own country or within the Western world. Coming to India would undoubtedly have been an extreme culture shock for most of you and it is natural that this would have impacted upon the effectiveness of the tasks you came here to carry out.
However, as a small, grass roots organization which depends largely upon foreign volunteers, Sambhali Trust has found that it requires a certain level of organization, communication and dedication from anybody working within it, and many volunteers have had to adjust their perspectives and put aside discomforts in order to contribute to their full capability. This might mean having to summon the courage to involve oneself more fully in activities, ask more questions, change one’s point of view and think in a more innovative or less conventional way in order to fully understand the new culture. Cultural immersion is the simplest and quickest way to get to the root of a community’s problems and begin to understand what people within the community truly require, from their own community, the community’s leaders and from foreign volunteers.
Sambhali Trust is of the view that this Service Learning Trip has not been as successful as it could have been in this regard. As you are aware, we have faced issues on all sides, some that have taken too long to be resolved.
One issue which arose was that of the behavior, notably enthusiasm and focus, of some of the students. Upon witnessing an interaction with a government department official, Sambhali Trust was disappointed by the disinterest showed by some students. This was noted in the absence of questions posed by students and the seeming lack of desire to fully follow and understand the conversation. It was embarrassing for a small organization, which has to depend completely upon its public reputation, to have its representatives showing apathy towards such important discussions.
At other times, Sambhali Trust has felt that the organization was being overlooked unnecessarily. This has occurred on at least two separate occasions; initially, when the Sambhali Trust was not mentioned in an introductory letter to a government departmental official, and later when it was omitted again in a letter prepared for a local health organization.
One final problem that Sambhali Trust needs to address lies in the structure of the trip. We feel as though the expectations for this venture, from all sides, were too high for the short time frame arranged. It is possible to learn a significant amount in four weeks; it is perhaps a strain, however, to research and implement projects during this time as well. Health issues, such as sickness attained from the heat, new diet and general stress, have impacted upon this also.
With more adequate preparation, a narrower focus and the resolution of issues addressed above, future trips could possibly be more successful. However, Sambhali Trust feels as though further Service Learning Trips would not be beneficial for the organization. This is an unfortunate conclusion and has been considered quite carefully.
Despite this sentiment, Sambhali Trust would like to thank all of students once again as we are genuinely grateful for all of your time and work, despite the difficulties faced. Please know that there are no hard feelings. As an experimental venture, there was always a possibility that this would not prove to be a success. It is all that we can do to take the lessons and experiences and move onwards to more successful projects.
All of your work here has been valuable and we have been impressed by your enthusiasm in the project planning and implementation stages of this trip. We will, after obtaining documentation from you, strive to keep these ideas alive and continue the projects on your behalf.
Thanking you for your understanding, contributions and efforts,
Sambhali Trust |
