His
Holiness inspires humanitarian leaders at Delhi Dialogue [Monday, 10 January 2011, 2:31 p.m.]
NEW DELHI:
Inspired by the teachings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama on compassion
and interdependence, a diverse group of over 75 individuals and
philanthropic groups from all the world gathered here on last Friday to
galvanize global impact on individual and communal well-being.Delhi
Dialogue, the first of its kind that brought together big and small
NGOs, is aimed at enabling humanitarian leaders to collaborate, network,
and create pragmatic opportunities as well as to expand their impact
and avoid duplication.Representatives of organisations working
on critical global issues such as poverty, rural empowerment, education,
conflict resolution, juvenile justice, and gender inequity made
presentations before His Holiness requesting his suggestions and advice
during the day-long event.His Holiness said many poor and
marginalised people he has met over years often tend to display a sense
of inferiority. He recalled a visit to a family in Soweto (South Africa)
where a local teacher related to the family told him how the natives
felt inferior. His Holiness said he told the teacher it was wrong to
hold such attitude and that every human being has the same potential.
“After a while, the teacher took a deep sigh and whispered to me that he
understood what I said,” said His Holiness who has since then sponsored
the education of the family’s three children. The children are now
doing further studies with financial help provided by His Holiness. “Show
more respect and give them self-confidence that they too are human
beings with equal right to overcome sufferings,” he said.Former
president of India, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, who chaired a session with His
Holiness on rural poverty shared his experience working on the PURA
project, a sustainable development system that provides urban amenities
in rural areas. Dr Kalam said the fact that 700 million Indians live in
600,000 villages makes it important to empower the rural areas for the
over all development of India. Each PURA benefits 20 villages and so far
7,000 Puras have been established.Richard Moore, the Irishman
who demonstrated a rare spirit of forgiveness by befriending the British
soldier who blinded him talked about the work his organisation,
Children in Crossfire, does in conflict-torn areas in Africa and Norther
Ireland. His Holiness had called Moore “My Hero” during a public talk
Moore gave at the Tibetan Children Village school in Dharamsala. “These
days, in my hometown in Derry, people tease me calling me “Derry Lama,”
Moore said leaving the audience in splits.Moore remembered a
meeting His Holiness had with some long-suffering victims of state and
paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland. He said the moment His
Holiness walked in, the whole atmosphere changed. And a woman who had
found it difficult to cope with the death of her husband by a proxy bomb
finally told His Holiness, “You have released me to forgive the people
who killed my husband,” Moore said.A common concern shared by
the participants was the untimely closure of many NGOs within less than
10 years of existence even after making effective contributions. Some
like Dr Fazal Abdel of BRAC (Bangladesh) suggested periodic overhaul of
the system in areas of human resources and auditing in addition to
time-tested values like determination and persistence to prevent
immature burnout. An interesting outcome of the event was the
commitment to build earthquake-proof schools in areas between Sichuan
and Yushu provinces – both hit by deadly quakes in 2008 and 2010 that
killed hundreds of schoolchildren, Mathieu Ricard, an eminent scientist
and a Buddhist monk informed the gathering.One of the success
stories shared by the participants was Joe Madiath’s Gram Vikas
initiative that aims at reducing unnecessary drudgery borne by rural
women in collecting firewood and fetching water as the key to increasing
female enrollment in schools. When he first started his project in
villages near Chandragiri in Orissa, less than 10 percent of women went
to schools. The enrollment rate is now above 90 percent after facilities
for water, electricity, and sanitation were provided. Some Tibetan
refugees living in the vicinity have also benefitted from this project.And
in Bangladesh, 200 schools run by BRAC outperformed many richer,
high-quality private schools in last year’s exams. BRAC works primarily
in the area of girl child education and has so far organised 8 million
women from different villages. Prayas provides education,
healthcare, and shelter some 35,000 street children in India.
Founder-Director Mr Amod Kanth said much work needed to be done as 60
million children still do not go to school out of which 35 million live
in extreme conditions exposed to various injustices including
trafficking. Prayas has also organised exchange programmes with Tibetan
children in Dharamsala.Craig Kielburger, founder of the
Canada-based Free The Children, has built 650 schools for marginalised
children. In partnership with the Vancouver-based Dalai Lama Center for
Peace and Education, the organisation has created various programmes
through which children raised funds for schools in Gansu, Sichuan,
India, and Africa. Quoting His Holiness, Kielburger said the greatest
challenge is not in fixing the challenges the world faces but in raising
the children to care about these existing challenges. Bunker
Roy’s Barefoot College employs an unique method to electrify villages –
by training illiterate grandmothers, among them some Tibetans, to be
solar engineers. Earlier this year in Dharamsala, Roy introduced His
Holiness to two grandmothers who were to later become engineers. The NGO
also works in Africa and Himalayan areas besides Rajasthan where it is
located. The Canada-based Roots of Empathy fosters a sense of
empathy among school children to arrest what founder Mary Gordon called
“desertification of heart”. Gordon said developed countries with their
modern education and highly advanced economies face large quantities of
“emotional illiteracy”. By 2010, the impact of the organisation has
grown to 300,000 students scattered all over North America and Europe. Other
presenters were Leila Chiriyath Janah of Samasource, Saurav Adhikari of
Shiv Nadar Foundation, Jeff Walker of Millenium Promise, Rev. Mpho Tutu
of Tutu Institute for Prayer, Carolyn Miles of Save The Children, Peggy
Dulany of Synergos, Zainab Salbi of Women for Women International,
Barun Mohanty of Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, UNICEF, Jennifer
Buffett of NoVo, Rajeev Mehrotra of Foundation for Universal
Responsibility, Ruchira Gupta of Apne Aap, Mohammad Musa of CARE, and
the Omidyar Network. Victor Chan, a Chinese-Canadian who
co-authored Wisdom of Forgiveness with His Holiness hosted the event.
Chan who has been a long-time friend of His Holiness is also the author
of Tibet Handbook: A Pilgrimage Guide.
