Does Community Service Really Change Anything?

Raj Mundra, Director of the Niswarth program, has recently written an op-ed piece, "Does Community Service Really Change Anything?" that was published in the Christian Science Monitor.  The link:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1229/p09s01-coop.html

Young Girl at Temple
by Michael Scognamiglio

Seven years, blade thin, big clothes, not a sin
Outside the Bombay temple, the markets pulse races
Hindi yelps in the air, quick gasps, blurred faces.
The auspicious day so the temple was spilling
Line winds serpentine, frantically and willing.
But even amidst the throngs of devotees
There was really only one girl I could see
Whispering Hindi to me.

Her hands on her lips, forming a bowl
“Please” she breathes, an arrow to my soul.
The pavement around her, piles of filth
She begged on her tiptoes, up like stilts

Her fragile fingers recite Mozart on my arm
Pressing and tapping and gripping, my alarms
Are blaring in my head, nerves on fire
Cause what I know I should do and what I know I should do are not the same

“Don’t even look at them” that’s what they say
“Shake your head, do not pay, shake your head, walk away”

But the Hindi plea she breathed, was like a sacred prayer
Her wet black eyes framed by untamed hair
As tall as my buckle but her gaze in the skies
Looking straight at me, straight into my eyes

Oh the crowd was a cage
They locked us inside
There was no avoiding this tragic collide
Like a minor note in a major key
She was all that I could see.

We pushed through the crowd, she kept right beside me
Small steps, quick paces, eyes fixed in a hurry
I slipped through the gate, she was stopped by security

But when I looked back through the wire
She was still there, watching me, forlorn eyes on fire.
Cause what I knew I should do and what I knew I should do
I still don’t know
Which one was right

Niswarth Summer Photos Slideshow

Check out some of the images that we captured while we were in India this summer:

Niswarth Summer Slideshow

Niswarth In the News

The work that students and faculty have done in India as part of Niswarth has been featured in a number of publications. Check out Niswarth in the news:

Daily News and Analysis, "Mumbai - Students Join Hands for Sustainable Change" (August 2008)

India New England "Phillips Academy students learn, serve in Mumbai" (August 2008)

Lokvani “In Conversation with Raj Mundra” (September 2008)

Thank you

As the Director of the Niswarth program, I am grateful for the tremendous support of people in various organizations who helped to make our three weeks in Mumbai a transforming experience.  

Alana Rush, faculty in the Community Service Office at Phillips Academy, has helped to conceptualize this program and understands how service-learning can empower young people to become involved in their communities and learn more about themselves.  

Many sincere thanks to the parents of all of the students involved.  Thank you for sharing your wonderful sons and daughters with our program.  Each of them has learned to combine goodness, knowledge and action in meaningful ways.  As you have read in their blog entries, each student leaves Mumbai with a deeper resolve to become positive changemakers in society. With your guidance, they will create their own paths with passion and courage.    

At Phillips Academy, this program was launched from the Community and Multicultural Development (CAMD) and Community Service offices, and this year we partnered with the Global Perspectives Group inviting four PA faculty (Dr. Christopher Shaw - econ and history/social science, Andy Housiaux - philosophy and religious studies, Peg Harrigan - art, and Stephanie Curci - English) to participate in portions of the student program.  

The Head of School's Office helped us to coordinate Barbara and David Chase's schedule so that we could host them in Mumbai for a few days towards the end of our program.  The Dean of Studies and the Global Initiatives offices have been instrumental in helping the Niswarth program consider links to the academic program.  The Communications office have written fantastic press releases and have done a great job to share the central elements of the program with the greater PA community.  The Office of Academic Resources reached out to PA parents and alums to help raise necessary funds for Niswarth and coordinate different presentations in the US and India.  Our Financial Aid office also provided necessary funding for any student on campus to access this incredible opportunity.  The Abbot Academy Association awarded a grant so that Tessa Pompa ('08) could purchase the necessary equipment to make a video documentary and she also received help from the Audio Visual Center.  Finally, the Business Office and Isham Health Center made sure that we covered all bases in terms of safety and health precautions. 

This is the fourth year that PA faculty and students have been involved in a service-learning program in Mumbai.  The first two years were funded by the International Academic Partnership and our gracious hosts have always been the Godrej family (Navroze '01 and parents Pheroza and Jamshyd).

This summer we partnered with different organizations and heard from individuals representing the following groups:

Udayachal School

Save the Children India

Akanksha

Mann Deshi Mahila Bank

Pratham

American School of Bombay

US Consulate - Mumbai

Government of Maharashtra

Mumbai Police

Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd.

Haath Mein Sahat, Mumbai

Ashoka Youth Venture Program - Mumbai

Tata Consultancy Services

It has been a privilege and an honor work with such smart, creative and determined people from all of these organizations.  Their varied perspectives encouraged us to think about development issues from the government, citizen sector, and corporate points of view.  

Through our service, readings, reflections and discussions our group engaged in difficult topics and had genuine encounters with different communities.  The program was unsettling and challenged many of our preconceived notions about India, ways in which communities function, access to resources, and the role of young people in becoming changemakers.  Out of these experiences emerged a sophisticated empathy, a sincere desire to become involved, and a deep commitment to leave a lasting change for good.

It was an incredible three weeks!  We now look ahead to sharing our work with others, thinking critically about social issues, and becoming changemakers.

We have been invited by the Phillips Academy Summer Session to speak as a part of the annual W.E.B. DuBois Colloquia series.  Our program, "Niswarth:  Empowering Global Citizenship through Youth Empowerment" will take place on July 31st at 6:15pm in Kemper Auditorium on Chapel Avenue on the Phillips Academy campus.  The program is free and open to the public, and we hope to see many of you there.

Best wishes,

Raj Mundra

Epiphany

It’s actually here. There is no turning back from reality now. We are leaving Mumbai in approximately six hours. I cannot quite grasp my emotions yet, however. It is a culmination of sorrow, regret, and apprehensive eagerness. I know that this experience like this will only come once in a lifetime, but I also know that what I take away from NISWARTH in terms of mentality and future action is even more important. I have come away from these three weeks with a burning inspiration to go out into the world, pursue my passion, and make change. I can no longer be content with simply standing on the sideline. Youth are the next generation- that is not going to change- so we have the responsibility to change the world and its vicious cycle.

I have learned so much here, seen so much here- I feel guilty going back to Andover. I wish I could help everyone in the world. I have realized over the past few weeks that the world is truly immense. The man whose eye I catch from the bus window for a split second has a life story, that woman selling mangoes on the street, hidden behind her veil- she has a life story. The ragged children who trotted after me yesterday in the market all have life stories. I am a minuscule part of an infinite phenomenon. But it is my duty as one of the most fortunate- someone with the ability to think for herself, blessed with a thorough education and a caring family- that should be most compelled to make the world a better place for every human to live in.

I have laughed more on this trip than I believe I have during the entire last school year. Of that I am certain. I wish I could condense this trip into an essay or a five-minute speech, but I can’t. It just is not possible. No matter how much we try to explain what we did or saw or felt, no one but us will be able to understand. I wish everyone back home could be a part of NISWARTH. I am beyond grateful to have had this opportunity.

We are coming home soon. And we are coming home changed.

Zahra Bhaiwala.

Last Reflections

As our time in India comes to an end, it's hard for me to believe that it's really been just 3 weeks since we first set foot in Mumbai. In many ways, the time has flown, and in others, I've settled into a pattern here and feel like I've been in the city forever.

The changes I've noticed, both in myself and in our group, are too numerous to list them all. I watch as my fellow PA students step boldly into the chaos of the traffic while crossing the street, when only a few short weeks ago we had to hold hands just to get the courage to begin. I see how we've observed the poverty and hardships around us with everything from shock to sadness, and I am so impressed with and inspired by my peers as they ceaselessly give their all to the overcoming the challenges we have faced. And most of all, I see how we've grown comfortable with experiencing and sharing tough emotions with each other-- everything from anger to confusion to frustration and beyond.

In the end, I don't think this trip was an opportunity for us 14 extremely privileged kids from PA and Udayachal High School to act as "angels of goodwill" in less fortunate communities for three weeks, and then go home to our double shot Starbucks cappuccinos and on-demand cable, patting ourselves on the back for a job well done and writing this experience off as an impressive filler on a college application. To do so would be an insult to the work we've done here and the things we learned. And while I won't deny that the tired, homesick part of me is ready to go home to hot water and my own bed and take-out Chinese food, I know that my enjoyment of these luxuries will be forever tempered with the images I have in my mind of kids sleeping on highway medians and old men sitting for hours on doorsteps in the slums, waiting patiently for something that I, at least, can't identify. These sights have grown no easier for me to see, but during these 3 weeks I have grown a little bit used to them. In some ways, I wish that wasn't the case. No one should become accustomed to seeing the poverty like the kind we have seen here.

The key to affecting change is to never lose that shock and fury that hits you when you are first exposed to unimaginable injustices. With those emotions as the motor that continues to power your desire to act, and tempered with a "sophisticated empathy" (a phrase Mr. Mundra has used), any change you can imagine is yours for the making. I hope I never lose that vulnerability that has allowed me to get so much out of this trip, and I hope that this is only the first of many experiences I will have that leave me changed for the better in more ways than I could have possibly imagined.

Anabel