Samanvaya News Room

Participated and spoke to the District Regional Officers (RO) of EKAM Foundation in the Sevayoor Herbal Farm of CCD near Kariapatti outside Madurai.  It was wonderful to interact and discuss issues of Development with the young enthusiastic team, with an inspiring leadership and dedicated set of managers facilitating their learning, it looks like Ekam is incubating several future leaders in these ROs.  here a young RO doing an impromptu jig in the middle of my lecture session... Felt quite energized spending this time with the EKAM team. Spoke to them of several aspects of Development challenges in the rural sector today in general and presented a 4-step path to becoming change makers in society. Overall, the response was quite enthusiastic and the team sounded motivated. Ram 28th November 2013

28th November 2013, Sadhana Kuti, Sevayoor Mulgai Campus, near Kariapatti - It was great to spend a day with the Ekam Foundation Regional Officers (ROs) discussing social 'change management' processes and their own institutional core values and strengths. These young professionals will be working at the district level, creating community based platforms for effective facilitation, monitoring and implementation of health care policies and programmes of government as well as proactively taking up healthcare initiatives, particularly for pregnant mothers and infant care ( Ekam Updates in their Blog ). They all had just finished a phenomenally successful Joy of Giving Week campaign and its follow-up work in most of October and November ( details here ).  In two sessions lasting over 5 hours, we covered a extensive range of subjects centered around the change management processes that need to be internalized by the ROs for their work will community based institutions in the di...

The newly installed majestic statue of Swami Vivekananda in the Ulundurpet Sri Sarada Ashram I had earlier registered being asked to fetch some traditional varieties of paddy by a Sister of the Sri Sarada Ashram, Ulundurpet in October. The Ashram had gone on a target of gathering 150 traditional varieties of paddy as an unique celebration of the 150th Birth Centenary of Swami Vivekananda. These varieties acquired from farmers who are already conserving them in different parts of the state and neighbour states are now being conserved at the Ashram in situ .  It was great to visit and understand their conservation activities and the Ashram now plans to multiply these seeds by providing them to farmers in the region is a very welcome move and will go a long way to ensure that the traditional varieties are sustained and farmer's rights over seeds as well in the process. Here are some scenes from the paddy fields...