Saturday, April 4, 2015

Working with SEWA

My Mentoring Journey So far
Dalai Lama once said, "All religions try to benefit people, with the same basic message of the need for love and compassion, for justice and honesty, for contentment". This is what me and my mentee realised in our journey with SEWA Bharat. Me and my mentee Nargis come from completely different religions and backgrounds. Being in a country where religious modernity continues to dominate public sphere it was beautiful for us to surpass these boundaries that not only helped us see a part of life that we were unaware of but also helped us to evolve as mature individuals on a personal level.
Having passed the rigorous selection procedure for this fellowship that sought to look deep within us to measure our potential as mentors, my ethusiasm for the same made me believe I could do justice to the responsibilty, However as I progressed in this journey, I realised that there exsists a veil of ignorance that blinds us into believing that we are efficiently equipped to handle the tangible challenges in life. What we fail to realise is that there exist many intangible challenges as well, that come up unexpectedly. This beautiful journey made me and my mentee realise these intangible and significant challenges of life. 
The trajectory of our journey by far highlights the admirable achievement of emotional Intelligence. As we progressed, each meeting brought with itself a myraid of emotions that encouraged us to dwell deeper within ourselves and strengthened the mutual bond of dedication and sincerity towards each challenge we set out to conquer. On a personal level I was determined to have Nargis blossom as much as she could with my support. I realised a simple act of appreciation could do wonders to one's self confidence and self esteem. My mentees perseverance and welcoming nature came as a healthy surprise.
Even as we dealt with serious and specific topics like improving her english, health,personal hygiene, self defense, time management, women rights, we also developed insights into unconventional  topics like fashion, telephonic conversations skills, interview skills with stress on interpersonal skills. However apart from the routine, what stood out for me and my mentee were the different levels of empowerment fabricated by our circumstances. Empowerment for the ease of comprehension was related to emotional intelligence as apart from its usual generalised interutilization of professional independence and the former. It was pivotal for me to make her realise the dynamism of this attribute that encouraged independent thinking. As a manifestation of this, rational decision making found its way into her thought process, that made her take all aspects into consideration before asserting a choice. Hence, she learnt the art of consequential thinking. In this entire process I saw myself reiterating these  values in my mind again while speaking to Nargis about it so we could collectively channelize the same into our future prospects of leadership opportunities. An elightenment struck that empowerement was directly proportional to freedom that sought its roots in the virtue of mutual faith and trust among our folks.
This journey has definitly made me and Nargis get a taste of " Eudaemonism", and we are thankful to SEWA Bharat for the same.