First Impression, July 2009
Ms. Dani Noble


The ‘Sambhali space’ is amazing evidence of the natural bond that exists between women. Wherever she is from, whatever her story, in an all-female group a woman can find a safe space to learn, share, and play. And as I am becoming part of the Sambhali community, I am finding it to be a sacred place for me as well as the women and girls who participate in the Sambhali program.

The first Saturday I spent here, the girls and I danced all day: kathak, para nathium, Rajasthani folk dance, salsa, hip hop…we did it all. It was perhaps the most fun I’ve had in India thus far. I think that simply letting our hair down together was a great way of building immediate trust. I am making fast friends with many of the girls, and we dance and let loose whenever we have a moment free from sewing or English lessons.

The women and girls at Sambhali are among the strongest and most resilient I have ever met. Many of them have experienced more discrimination, abuse, and oppression that I can ever conceive of. I remember during one of my first days here, I listened to one woman (Sabina, now one of my very good friends) tell stories of the domestic abuse she endured on a daily basis, showing me the cuts and bruises that littered her arms and face. She told me how this type of abuse is why she comes to Sambhali: to learn and play in a safe space, free from the troubles of her domestic life.

Something I have learned from Sabina in the two weeks that I have been here is how important independent learning is to women’s empowerment. If a woman feels confident in her own learning abilities, using skills she is taught to further her own independent thinking, she can feel confident about her own mind. She is no longer her body or her dowry, but an independent, creative thinker. Each day, after an English lesson with Sabina, I give her written and reading assignments to take home with her. In addition, I give work out of a supplemental textbook, which Sabina borrows from me to take home. Sabina takes a great deal of pride in being able to study English independently in her own home: to, after her domestic chores are finished, sit down by herself and learn. This has been, for her, a powerful way of taking a small piece of Sambhali home with her each evening.

I have also been working with another group of girls who are at a more basic English level. We are currently working on writing English letters and associating these letters with their sounds, using Hindi script as a learning reference point. It has been challenging because all of the girls are at different levels. I try to do as much individual instruction as possible, assigning different homework to the girls depending on their fluency.
I enjoy teaching English immensely because it is a great opportunity to teach English, learn Hindi, and bond with the girls over educational activities (for example, English role-playing). Over the course of my time here at Sambhali, I would like to develop a more structured English curriculum for girls who go through the Sambhali program. That is, a core reference book that would include helpful worksheets, reference sheets, and lesson plans for conversational and written English. This reference book would be structured so that non-Hindi speaking volunteers could teach concepts in clear, understandable ways. In addition, the goal would be for the students to learn English while the teacher simultaneously learns Hindi. In this way, Sambhali women could be Hindi teachers as well as English learners. I’ve found through my experience over the last two weeks that this relationship is an extremely empowering one for the girls: they are so eager to share what they know as well as learn what they do not know.