Flowering Tree

The name of the Jamalpur (Manav Gulzar project) sponsors is an organization called Flowering Tree. They are based out of New York and basically visit and find organizations that do good work with women and children in Asia that is in line with their own organization values. They are funding our Jamalpur project. The way they decided to fund this project was very interesting. They were in Ahmedabad working on a different project, which fell through. They decided since they were here, they might as well check out the Gandhi Ashram. So they were visiting and stumbled into the Manav Sadhna hub while wandering. They loved it there, met everyone, saw all of the projects. They didn't do anything then though. They came back and visited every year for 3 years. Then in the 3rd year they were in the same van as some of the leaders from Jamalpur going to prathna. They started talking to this leader, asking him how they maintain such peace and harmony in a mixed Hindu-Muslim area. The husband started explaining...when he was newly married, he loved bossing his wife around. When he wanted to have people over for dinner, he would order his wife, make dinner for 10 people tomorrow. He quickly learned, however, that she maybe would not be able to go against him, but all she had to do was put extra chilly in the dinner, and his guests would never return, not to mention his image would be tainted. Instead, he learned that if he asks his wife, I want to have these people over for dinner, she might reply and say well today I cannot prepare that, but if you have them over tomorrow, I can make a good dinner. That way they work together, listen to each other, and everyone is happy. His wife was giggling in the corner listening to this story of course. So the leader said, I applied this same principle to the community. We listen to each other, ask what our thoughts are, and thus communicate well and live in harmony. Flowering Tree obviously heard this and thought what great and understanding leaders are running this area! Then they went to prayer, and afterwards these same leaders were talking to Jayeshbhai and Virenbhai saying they would like Manav Sadhna to help build a community center in Jamalpur. Flowering Tree heard this request, and afterwards in private, asked if they could help with this project. It was ironic since the Manav Sadhna philosophy regarding fund-raising is that whenever a need arises, someone who can meet that need comes along on their own - case and point! Thus started their relationship with Manav Sadhna.

I went to the airport to pick them up on Wednesday. It was a man and woman, middle-aged, very friendly. They were very excited to meet us and be here to see the project. They were very happy with the project, since they really were missing one thing in the project, communication and written reports, which I was able to fulfill. Also being from the states, I knew what type of stuff would be helpful for them to read, and thus was able to tailor the monthly reports to fit that. I gave them the annual report I wrote, which was a summary of all of the projects, reflections from the teachers, summary numbers regarding enrollment, nutrition etc. They literally could have kissed me, mainly because they didn't ask for this (they hate asking people who already are so active and busy in the field to do such stuff) and it had literally everything they needed. The next day we went around seeing everything, but they told me they were so at ease having read my report that they could just sit back and see everything without worrying about getting all of their questions answered etc. It felt good that something that wasn't painless, but relatively so, and definitely something that taught me a lot and helped Manav Sadhna also was such a big help for them. We went and visited Jamalpur - they loved everything they saw - and they knew a lot of the background so they felt like they knew what they were looking it. They saw thee construction, had pictures taken, songs sung to them..it was great! After that we went to the Leper Community to see that. They walked around and were shown the community - I sat aside and hung out with some of the little kids since I was exhausted (as was everyone). This was the middle of the day in full summer weather - I literally drank at least 1 liter of water over the 10 hours we were out, and did not have to use the bathroom, even when I got home. That tells you how much I must have sweat for that to happen! But it was great to meet and see them, and also see that they are working so hard on such projects, no only to provide funding, but have a genuine interest in helping and being involved however they can. It was heart-warming to spend time with them and a relief that my efforts on my largest project this year was beneficial to someone else besides me :)