A new experiment is completely changing lives in the rural areas of India by bringing luminosity where there used to be darkness.
The New York Times published an article titled, "Husk Power for India". Electricity, which is prevalent in the lives of many in developed nations, is a pure luxury in remote areas of developing ones. What was once fed to animals now is used to generate electricity - rice husks.
Growing up in rural Bihar State, Manoj Sinha knew what it was like to sit in the dark. Being an engineer with Intel Corporation he had all the skills to make a life long idea come alive. He led the development of his electricity equipment that generates power from rice husks and other farming waste and now he sells it to villages across India.
Sinha is what could be called a reformative businessman because he feels business is the answer to major social problems. "Business leaders must realise that the world's poor need investments more than handouts," he says, adding, "these are customers, not victims."
The article motivated me to think about offering things in a different way that made me ask myself, "what is the most perfect form of giving?" Is it edification, commerce or disaster aid? There are so many ways to create a difference. One way of giving can seem more productive or practical than other ways depending on the way it is given expression, viewed or put into practice.
I then came to identify there were eight sections to giving as a form to perceive this. So, let me outline the eight methods; which in effect are often 'phases' of giving as well.
Phase one: Exigency - salvaging and helping others who are suffering due to natural calamities, epidemic diseases or other insurmountable problems.
Stage two: Reprieve - providing reprieve from long-standing malnutrition, penury, illnesses, handicaps or inequity which otherwise would prolong or get worsened because of the lack of perception, edification or resources.
Stage three: Remedying and defense - internally, bodily and psychologically. Many people carry injuries that may be invisible but could be severely confining their lives. Giving the remedy to release the buried trauma creates better facilities for them while giving proper protection gives them a sense of defense.
Stage four: Education - giving better education, information and skill training to create empowered and creative solutions to resource generation while supporting individuals to discover their unique talent to thrive.
Stage five: Inspired investment - giving a help, capital or resources to those who have great talent to alter the situation. This gets used many times as the resources become more and passed on to other people who again produce more out of the prospects given.
Phase six: Maintainability - working collectively involving the people in the local surroundings, creating maintainable society - ecologically and communally.
Stage seven: Empowerment - sanctioning and influencing the people to set free their true capability and drive to make a difference. In this group of offering, the aim of offering changes from 'giving to those who are in need' to 'giving people an opening to give to others' and to the whole group.
Stage eight: Loving - just doing whatever we feel to do to love and care for others. No strategy or expected outcome exists in this stage of giving. 'Giving' does not even exist here in the traditional sense of the word, as there is no sense of possession or judgment or desire to change anything. This is where we do not even have to think about anything, we give as a part of our own joyful experience.
What we also perceive is that at each one of these eight stages of giving there are distinctive things that the donor gets back.
One: Sense of relationship
Two: Sense of wellbeing
Three: Relief from pain (our own)
Four: Thankfulness for our own ideas, gifts and conditions
Five: Long-term sense of contribution and satisfaction for our own life
Six: Improved environment for our own life and for the lives for all those we love and care for
Seven: Soul gratifying encouragement and devotion to our own purpose
Eight: Affection
Sharing has many stages and sensations based upon the donor and getter. And the 'phases' do not detail which one is of more importance than the other. All are mandatory.
I was lucky to have an experience early in 2008 while journeying with a group of devoted entrepreneurs across India to see how we could be more productive in our helping. I was particularly happy to have one outstanding encounter that led me to think about what 'actual giving' really meant.
We were travelling in a small town one day. Four of us had just called a taxi to take us to another nearby town. We dealt with the driver cautiously as our hotel staff had forewarned us about the possible swindle when they see that we were not local.
We chose to stop in front of the local train station for a short interval en route to the town. While the others went to use restrooms, I struck up a conversation with the driver of the taxi, standing nearby. With his limited English vocabulary and a smiling face that showed his black front teeth to advantage, he told me that he lived in the outskirts of the town and that he had a young wife and two kids who attended the local school - I began to feel a relationship with him.
I appreciated the fact of his having such a wonderful family and told him that I too had two little ones of almost the same ages as his. When the others were back the driver suddenly invited us to come to his house and have lunch. I took it only as a formality that was customary courtesy. But after taking us to the town center and leaving us there, he told us that he would wait for us until all our wandering in the town was over. And he really did. I was actually quite astonished to see him still remaining glued to the side of the road next to his taxi more than one hour later. We got into the taxi and he drove fast up the road to where he had his family.
When we landed there we were quite surprised to see the way he was living. It was in fact quite similar (if not worse) to the existence of the slum dwellers we had visited before that. From the bright new taxi he was driving, who could have pictured this
As the car turned into the narrow unsealed road between the hut-like houses that were constructed with crudely made concrete blocks and painted mud walls, we felt contrite about having agreed to his invitation. For a brief moment I felt mortified. "How could I have exploited the generosity of a man who didn't seem to have anything and I didn't even get any edible stuff or presents for his family", I thought.
As we walked into his house, we saw a pan and small stove on the mud floor. His very shy wife nodded blushing in surprise and disappeared into the small storeroom (a cupboard size) next to it. As I looked in, I saw the next-door neighbours handing over some teacups to his wife over the crumbled concrete fence. They didn't even have extra teacups in their house. There was only one small room fitted out with one single bed and an old galvanised chest next to it.
The driver hastily drew out three hand-woven mats from the trunk and spread them out on whatever little space there was on the mud floor and put one on the bed.
Soon the cups of tea and some snacks arrived. All his children and children from the neighborhood came to see us and stood in the doorway. All six of us were totally squashed in the tiny room. I curiously asked him where all his children were sleeping. I thought they probably had another space somewhere. To my surprise, he cheerfully pointed the chest and said it was their bed with his beaming smile.
He happily told us that he was an amateur dancer in the town and showed us some plaques on the sill above the bed. Enthusiastic to show us his dancing proficiency, he ran outside all at once. From somewhere music came flowing into the tiny room. He had no apparatus for music within the house, it was coming from outside. Surprised, I looked around to see him reversing his vehicle towards the back of his house keeping the doors open with the radio of the car blaring forth!
The time quickly passed (dancing together and having more cups of tea) and it was finally time to say thank you for their great hospitality and head on our way. As we stood up to leave and thank him and his wife, he reached to the best looking rug on the bed, rolled it up and handed it to us. It was one of the only few things he had. I could not believe he offered it to us.
We all respectfully refused his gift and came out saying goodbye to every one waving at us. We got perplexed about this whole thing. Should we have offered some cash to the family as they obviously had limited means? Should we have agreed to take his wonderful gift?
As I was thinking about this soul-lifting happening a few days afterwards, I was wondering about refusing his gift. He looked quite dejected that we didn't agree to take the gift. It wasn't only the fact of declining the gift that crossed my mind.
I understood that the sense of unease I felt was really ensuing from viewing him as unfortunate. I was perhaps thinking that I couldn't possibly accept something from a person who had very little.
But did he actually have modest means? Maybe he had other things - a lot more.
Maybe the real present we could have given him then was to receive his present in utmost deference and thankfulness.
All actions of gifting and getting are essential for us to fill our world with plenty and contentment equally for both giver and getter. We can begin doing this instead of assessing and defending one over the other. The perfect act of gifting and getting needs no further clarification.
Manoj Sinha's words echo in my mind once again, "these are customers, not victims." I can imagine the smiling faces of the villagers who are now proud to have electricity in their villages and the children who now can read books and learn in their homes at night.
The New York Times published an article titled, "Husk Power for India". Electricity, which is prevalent in the lives of many in developed nations, is a pure luxury in remote areas of developing ones. What was once fed to animals now is used to generate electricity - rice husks.
Growing up in rural Bihar State, Manoj Sinha knew what it was like to sit in the dark. Being an engineer with Intel Corporation he had all the skills to make a life long idea come alive. He led the development of his electricity equipment that generates power from rice husks and other farming waste and now he sells it to villages across India.
Sinha is what could be called a reformative businessman because he feels business is the answer to major social problems. "Business leaders must realise that the world's poor need investments more than handouts," he says, adding, "these are customers, not victims."
The article motivated me to think about offering things in a different way that made me ask myself, "what is the most perfect form of giving?" Is it edification, commerce or disaster aid? There are so many ways to create a difference. One way of giving can seem more productive or practical than other ways depending on the way it is given expression, viewed or put into practice.
I then came to identify there were eight sections to giving as a form to perceive this. So, let me outline the eight methods; which in effect are often 'phases' of giving as well.
Phase one: Exigency - salvaging and helping others who are suffering due to natural calamities, epidemic diseases or other insurmountable problems.
Stage two: Reprieve - providing reprieve from long-standing malnutrition, penury, illnesses, handicaps or inequity which otherwise would prolong or get worsened because of the lack of perception, edification or resources.
Stage three: Remedying and defense - internally, bodily and psychologically. Many people carry injuries that may be invisible but could be severely confining their lives. Giving the remedy to release the buried trauma creates better facilities for them while giving proper protection gives them a sense of defense.
Stage four: Education - giving better education, information and skill training to create empowered and creative solutions to resource generation while supporting individuals to discover their unique talent to thrive.
Stage five: Inspired investment - giving a help, capital or resources to those who have great talent to alter the situation. This gets used many times as the resources become more and passed on to other people who again produce more out of the prospects given.
Phase six: Maintainability - working collectively involving the people in the local surroundings, creating maintainable society - ecologically and communally.
Stage seven: Empowerment - sanctioning and influencing the people to set free their true capability and drive to make a difference. In this group of offering, the aim of offering changes from 'giving to those who are in need' to 'giving people an opening to give to others' and to the whole group.
Stage eight: Loving - just doing whatever we feel to do to love and care for others. No strategy or expected outcome exists in this stage of giving. 'Giving' does not even exist here in the traditional sense of the word, as there is no sense of possession or judgment or desire to change anything. This is where we do not even have to think about anything, we give as a part of our own joyful experience.
What we also perceive is that at each one of these eight stages of giving there are distinctive things that the donor gets back.
One: Sense of relationship
Two: Sense of wellbeing
Three: Relief from pain (our own)
Four: Thankfulness for our own ideas, gifts and conditions
Five: Long-term sense of contribution and satisfaction for our own life
Six: Improved environment for our own life and for the lives for all those we love and care for
Seven: Soul gratifying encouragement and devotion to our own purpose
Eight: Affection
Sharing has many stages and sensations based upon the donor and getter. And the 'phases' do not detail which one is of more importance than the other. All are mandatory.
I was lucky to have an experience early in 2008 while journeying with a group of devoted entrepreneurs across India to see how we could be more productive in our helping. I was particularly happy to have one outstanding encounter that led me to think about what 'actual giving' really meant.
We were travelling in a small town one day. Four of us had just called a taxi to take us to another nearby town. We dealt with the driver cautiously as our hotel staff had forewarned us about the possible swindle when they see that we were not local.
We chose to stop in front of the local train station for a short interval en route to the town. While the others went to use restrooms, I struck up a conversation with the driver of the taxi, standing nearby. With his limited English vocabulary and a smiling face that showed his black front teeth to advantage, he told me that he lived in the outskirts of the town and that he had a young wife and two kids who attended the local school - I began to feel a relationship with him.
I appreciated the fact of his having such a wonderful family and told him that I too had two little ones of almost the same ages as his. When the others were back the driver suddenly invited us to come to his house and have lunch. I took it only as a formality that was customary courtesy. But after taking us to the town center and leaving us there, he told us that he would wait for us until all our wandering in the town was over. And he really did. I was actually quite astonished to see him still remaining glued to the side of the road next to his taxi more than one hour later. We got into the taxi and he drove fast up the road to where he had his family.
When we landed there we were quite surprised to see the way he was living. It was in fact quite similar (if not worse) to the existence of the slum dwellers we had visited before that. From the bright new taxi he was driving, who could have pictured this
As the car turned into the narrow unsealed road between the hut-like houses that were constructed with crudely made concrete blocks and painted mud walls, we felt contrite about having agreed to his invitation. For a brief moment I felt mortified. "How could I have exploited the generosity of a man who didn't seem to have anything and I didn't even get any edible stuff or presents for his family", I thought.
As we walked into his house, we saw a pan and small stove on the mud floor. His very shy wife nodded blushing in surprise and disappeared into the small storeroom (a cupboard size) next to it. As I looked in, I saw the next-door neighbours handing over some teacups to his wife over the crumbled concrete fence. They didn't even have extra teacups in their house. There was only one small room fitted out with one single bed and an old galvanised chest next to it.
The driver hastily drew out three hand-woven mats from the trunk and spread them out on whatever little space there was on the mud floor and put one on the bed.
Soon the cups of tea and some snacks arrived. All his children and children from the neighborhood came to see us and stood in the doorway. All six of us were totally squashed in the tiny room. I curiously asked him where all his children were sleeping. I thought they probably had another space somewhere. To my surprise, he cheerfully pointed the chest and said it was their bed with his beaming smile.
He happily told us that he was an amateur dancer in the town and showed us some plaques on the sill above the bed. Enthusiastic to show us his dancing proficiency, he ran outside all at once. From somewhere music came flowing into the tiny room. He had no apparatus for music within the house, it was coming from outside. Surprised, I looked around to see him reversing his vehicle towards the back of his house keeping the doors open with the radio of the car blaring forth!
The time quickly passed (dancing together and having more cups of tea) and it was finally time to say thank you for their great hospitality and head on our way. As we stood up to leave and thank him and his wife, he reached to the best looking rug on the bed, rolled it up and handed it to us. It was one of the only few things he had. I could not believe he offered it to us.
We all respectfully refused his gift and came out saying goodbye to every one waving at us. We got perplexed about this whole thing. Should we have offered some cash to the family as they obviously had limited means? Should we have agreed to take his wonderful gift?
As I was thinking about this soul-lifting happening a few days afterwards, I was wondering about refusing his gift. He looked quite dejected that we didn't agree to take the gift. It wasn't only the fact of declining the gift that crossed my mind.
I understood that the sense of unease I felt was really ensuing from viewing him as unfortunate. I was perhaps thinking that I couldn't possibly accept something from a person who had very little.
But did he actually have modest means? Maybe he had other things - a lot more.
Maybe the real present we could have given him then was to receive his present in utmost deference and thankfulness.
All actions of gifting and getting are essential for us to fill our world with plenty and contentment equally for both giver and getter. We can begin doing this instead of assessing and defending one over the other. The perfect act of gifting and getting needs no further clarification.
Manoj Sinha's words echo in my mind once again, "these are customers, not victims." I can imagine the smiling faces of the villagers who are now proud to have electricity in their villages and the children who now can read books and learn in their homes at night.
About the Author:
Buy1-GIVE1 ( www.buy1-give1free.com ) is the home of transaction based giving. Visit Buy1GIVE (BOGO) today and discover how your business can flourish. Click here to get your own unique version of this article with free reprint rights.
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