Dr. Giri's Visit to the U.S.A. (May 2010)
It is indeed a nice opportunity for the Guild that I visit USA at the invitation of Hunger Project where I am in the Board of Directors twice a year. This gives me an opportunity to talk about our work and our vision at various Universities of USA and other meetings. This year I had five definite and important meetings in New York (apart from meeting Guild members):
- Meeting of the Board of Directors Hunger Project
- Visit and lecture presentation at Manhattanville College and showing of the film 'White Rainbow'
- A very important meeting called by Congo on Gender Discrimination: Multiple layers and Multiple forms. I was a keynote Speaker at this Conference
- Meeting with the AARP authorities for seeking Strategic ways to help the elderly.
- Showing White Rainbow at Congo and lecture.
All these have been made possible with the kind help and dynamic assistance of Ms. Ranjit Jayanti who had made arrangements to be present and organize the events in New York.
Another event was organized by the Kellogg School of Management at Chicago and the Allen Centre.
New-York (The Hunger Project)
This was a very unusual and unique meeting of The Hunger Project where all of us the Board of Directors met after the CEO Jill Lester had left. The highlight of the meeting was that we were able to nominate Rita Sarin as the Vice-President, South Asian Region. It was decided to short list three candidates for the post of CEO. It was also decided the fall Event will focus South Asia and ten years of highlighting the work in India. It was decided the Fall Event would be on 24th of October, 2010.
During the Hunger Project Meeting, I stayed at the Carlton Hotel and then shifted to Ranjit's house for the rest of meetings. On the 3rd of May, Ranjit took me to the Offices of Congo where she finalized my meetings at Congo
In the evening, we left by train for the Grand Central station, where we boarded the train to go to Manhattanville. It was a two hour Journey and we took a cab to go to the College. There were about 100 participants, staff and the Chancellor of the University. Ms. Smith hosted a dinner for us and then showed the movie White Rainbow with a Question Answer session.
Ms. Bani Duggal of the Baha'i Center had also kindly invited some of her friends who came to attend the meetings. The dean was very keen to send some interns to India and I shared all the detail with them. It was a very hectic and tiring meeting with a long journey of train and taxi back to New York. Ms. Ranjit Jayanti has paid for all the taxies and train tickets.
We reached home by 12 o'clock at night after a very successful lecture.
Tuesday the 4th May, we went to the Congo (Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with United Nations) office and finalized the evening programmes for Civil Society Development Forum 2010 (CSDF2010). CSDF 2010 on Women's Human Rights and Development: Inclusion, Participation and Equality took place at Salvation Army International Social Justice Commission Auditorium, 221 East 52nd Street (between 2nd and 3rd Avenues), New York.
The Opening Plenary began 9am with President's Remarks by Liberato Bautista, President, Congo and welcome remarks by Commissioner M. Christine McMillan Director, International Social Justice Commission, Salvation Army. Afternoon Panel Discussions started by 1:30pm. I was the Panelist for the third Panel on topic Gender Discrimination: Multiple Layers and Multiple forms. The moderator of the panel was Jackie Shapiro, Chairperson, Zonta Club of New York, USA, Zonta International. My Co-panelists were Patricia Ackerman, Program Officer LGBT/SOGI Human Rights Program, Officer at UN, Unitarian Universalist, Kate Burns, Senior Humanitarian Affairs Officer UN OCHA and Anthea Spencer-Miller, Assistant Professor of New Testament, Drew University.
It was indeed a very powerful meeting with representatives of Congo and 100 odd audience in a Huge hall of Salvation auditorium. The Congo President Liberato Bautista appreciated my speech very much and the audience had many questions to ask during the Question Answer session that followed.
After this meting we dashed to the 7th floor of Congo Office, Church Centre only to find that due to some irregularity, the Congo Secretary, Ms. Anita Thomas was relieved of her duties. Hence, Ranjit very kindly took some of the Guests who had arrived for the movie to her house and organized the showing of the movie with a lot of snacks. Our grateful thanks to Ms.Ranjit who arranged this all without any preparation or notice!
Wednesday, the 5th, Ranjit had an appointment with office of American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), where we spent nearly two hours, discussed with Jessica Frank Lopez, Director, New York Office various issues and challenges pertaining to health care and I was interviewed by Erica Dhar. We had requested AARP to send the copy of interview to us. It was also a learning experience to use for our advocacy on elderly as I am now chairing the Government of India committee to implement the Policy for the Elderly.
On 5th Evening, visitors from Greenwich and Ranjit's grandchildren came to see us. The visitors from Greenwich visit India very often and they came to us so that they can know more about Ma-dham before they come to India.
Thursday, 6th. It was indeed very gracious of Ranjit to arrange for me a car to take me to Hindu Temple in Flushings. After the temple, I went straight to the Airport to take my flight for Detroit.
A very hectic week in New York! Thanks so much to Ranjit. It was a great success.
I also met Ms. Lashita Dhingra, Consultant Global Foundation for Humanity, The Veerni Project, New York. The Veerni Project, under the patronage of their Highness the Maharaja and Maharani of Jodhpur, is the result of the vision of its founder, Chairperson of the Global Foundation for Humanity, Ms. Jacqueline de Chollet. Among its many projects, Veerni is particularly proud of the girls' hostel in That Desert Region in Jodhpur. Veerni believes that these girls will be our ambassadors in re-orienting the mind-set of rural communities.
Meeting Guild Members
You will be happy to know that Gyana Murthy and Radha were two orphan girls brought up by Guild of Service as far back as in the early 70's. Radha was taken to America where she is doing well for herself.
In 2001, I took the other sister Gyana's daughter Vani to USA (Gyana was married by the Guild to Mr. Murthy who ill-treated her and threw her out). In USA, in the beginning she stayed with her aunt Radha, However, she was thrown out in 2003 and had to fend for herself. She joined the school where she got scholarship to finish her high school. After her high school, we advised her to join Fairleigh Dickinson University. She has now finished three years of the college. She had borrowed heavily on educational loan and worked as a maid and helper in a Restaurant in order to finish her studies. However, this time where she came to visit in New York, she was in a bad state due to heavy recession in America and she was not able to complete two subjects: Adult Care and Nursing. She needs to complete this. On behalf of the Guild of Service, I gave her $100 and told her that I will explore possibilities of getting some sponsor so that she can finish her B.S.N. Graduation. Only after completing this will she be able to be called a registered Nurse. She is at present earning $22 an hour and has saved approx. $ 4000. She needs $10,000 more to finish her education, after which she would like to do her masters. She was born in 1982 under the supervision of Guild of Service and delivery was performed free of charge by Dr. Urmil Sharma. A request for any sponsorship towards completion of her education would be highly appreciated.
I also met Ms. Suman Mathur. She was working for Guild Of Service, Rastrapati Bhawan, New Delhi between 1971-75. It was indeed like having a daughter in USA and I was very fortunate that she brought home cooked food for us and looked after me. I am pointing this out specially to say that in far away USA also, we have members who care and share for our work.
Chicago
Monday, the 17th May, I left Detroit for Chicago Kellogg School of Management where I was the keynote Speaker at Kellogg School of Management, an event at Kin Global. My name was referred to the Kellogg School by Purnima Voria. There were about 120 CEO's, Presidents of the topmost companies of USA to attend the meeting.
The focus was on building a Global Community for Health, nutrition and challenges of Economic Crises. The session was Chaired by Peter Thorrington. It was a huge success and I saw a standing ovation of audience from the world community of Business leaders. I was perhaps the only one who was the social activist and not even a worker with remuneration and not a business woman.
Various other sessions were on topics like Education of Youth, Women and Global Development, An inside-Out Approach to Business and Philanthropy.
On Wednesday, May 19th, at Allen's Centre, The plenary Panel on Bringing Nutrition to the world had my opening remarks on the challenges India faces in providing sufficient nutrition to its ever growing population and potential solutions. The co-panelists were Dr. Jeffrey Bland, Co-founder and Chief Science Officer, Metagenics, Inc., Steve Wilson, CEO, CF Industries, Sanjay Khosla, Executive Vice President and President, Developing Markets and Global Categories, Kraft Foods and Mediator was Peter Bryant, Chief Executive Officer, TransTech USA, Kin Senior Fellow. This session was meaningful in many ways as I able to talk on the Guild issues also and have built contacts with so many people at one stretch.
While at Detroit in my daughter's place I was able to establish contact with Ms. Drew and she was keen to come to India and purchased 100 Tulsi Malas, which my daughter posted to Minnesota. Katherine and Paul rang up and invited me to lecture at Northern Kentucky University and at Xavier University in Cincinnati in November'2010. This is interesting as I would be able to meet different level of people from Universities and Civil Society. Sajid Malhotra (son of War Widow Shammi Malhotra) is also in Ohio and we could establish contact there also.
The date for next Hunger Project Board Meeting is 24th October 2010 and I will further proceed to Ohio and Illinois. If any members are there in USA at that time, it would be great to have them with me.
Although, I have been doing all this since the past 10 years and have addressed so far 52 universities in USA, it is tiring, time consuming and expensive. I do hope that some members will be inspired and locate themselves in these roles in the future.
Many Thanks to Ranjit!