Empower Underprivileged Women & Girls in India

The following is a postcard from Neeharika Tummala, GlobalGiving's In-the-Field Representative in India and Bangladesh, about her recent visit to Sambhali Trust.

I was super excited to visit this organization as my interaction with the founder – Govind, was so welcoming and friendly, I wanted to skip all the site visits in between and get to Jodhpur, Rajasthan directly. Unfortunately, a few days before I found out that Govind’s brother passed away and so I wasn’t sure if I would even get to visit the family. However, when I got there, despite the grief, Govind still make a site visit possible for me. Thanks to Govind, an amazing team of volunteers and staff, I got to meet the ladies and their children who benefit from the Sambhali Trust.

Sambhali is housed within a beautiful guest house that Govind runs. The NGO section is also beautiful with inspiring paintings, women learning sewing in one corner, and practicing in another corner. The best part is that the environment is really kids friendly – while mothers study, the children are free to play and stay occupied with books and games. You can see the enthusiasm for photos as they pose for my camera. By the time you leave Sambhali, you can’t help but feel really positive about the world and that good things are happening.

A major strength of Sambhali are its volunteers, who come from all over the world for extended volunteering stints. They contribute their design and organizational knowledge as well as skills and continuously improve the organization. After the training center, I went to the advanced sewing center, where women were busy fulfilling an order they had received. There they create the cutest stuffed toys which are not only sold at the Sambhali Boutique, but also go on order to other countries. These stuffed toys have great designs, thanks to ideas from the volunteers and the creativity of the women, and looked so tempting I wanted to steal a stuffed elephant and the mermaid lion, which was my personal favorite. Thank you Sambhali for the site visit and great memories! I definitely hope to be back there someday, stay at the guest house, volunteer and spread some Sambhali love!