| Guidelines On The Value Of Giving |
| Written by Masami Sato | |
| Saturday, 09 January 2010 08:55 | |
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A new experiment is completely changing lives in the rural areas of India by bringing luminosity where there used to be darkness.
A new experiment is completely changing lives in the rural areas of India by bringing luminosity where there used to be darkness. An article was published in The New York Times named, "Husk Power for India". Current, which is routinely available in the lives of most in industrialized nations, is an unimaginable luxury in out-of-the-way corners of emerging countries. What was once fodder for cattle is now used to produce current - rice husks. Being brought up in the pastoral Bihar State, Manoj Sinha knew what it was like to be without light at night. Being an engineer with Intel Corporation he had all the competence to bring a lifelong idea to fruition. He led the creation of his power generation equipment from rice husks and other wastes from farms and now he sells power to rural areas across India. Sinha is what could be called a social industrialist because he feels entrepreneurship is a way out for important problems of the society. "Business leaders must realise that the world's poor need investments more than handouts," he says, adding, "these are customers, not victims." The article inspired me to think about giving in a different way leading me to ask myself, "what is the most effective form of giving?" Is it education, commercial activity or disaster relief? There are so many ways to make a difference. One way of giving can seem more effective or sustainable than other ways depending on the way it is expressed, looked at or implemented. I then came to identify there were eight sections to giving as a form to perceive this. So, let me outline the eight methods; which in effect are often 'phases' of giving as well. Stage one: Necessity - saving and helping others who are afflicted by natural catastrophe, contagious diseases or other unmanageable conditions. Phase two: Respite - providing respite from enduring need, poverty, ill-health, disadvantages or prejudice which otherwise would continue or deteriorate because of the lack of awareness, training or resources. Stage three: Healing and protection - mentally, physically and emotionally. Many people carry traumas that may be invisible but severely limiting their lives. Giving the healing to release the deep-rooted pain creates more opportunities for them while giving suitable protection gives them a sense of security. Stage four: Education - giving better education, information and skill training to create empowered and creative solutions to resource generation while supporting individuals to discover their unique talent to thrive. Stage five: Creative investment - lending a hand, money or resources to those who have great potential to make a difference. This gets leveraged many times as the resources increase and passed on to many others who again make more out of the opportunities given. Phase six: Maintainability - working collectively involving the people in the local surroundings, creating maintainable society - ecologically and communally. Stage seven: Empowerment - sanctioning and influencing the people to set free their true capability and drive to make a difference. In this group of offering, the aim of offering changes from 'giving to those who are in need' to 'giving people an opening to give to others' and to the whole group. Stage eight: Loving - just doing whatever we feel to do to love and care for others. No strategy or expected outcome exists in this stage of giving. 'Giving' does not even exist here in the traditional sense of the word, as there is no sense of possession or judgment or desire to change anything. This is where we do not even have to think about anything, we give as a part of our own joyful experience. What we also perceive is that at each one of these eight stages of giving there are distinctive things that the donor gets back. One: Sense of relationship Two: Sense of comfort Three: Relief from pain (our own) Four: Thankfulness for our own ideas, gifts and conditions Five: Long-term sense of commitment and contentment for our own life Six: Better ambience for our own life and for the lives of others we treasure and revere Seven: Soul rewarding stimulation and commitment to our own purpose Eight: Care Giving has many planes and understandings upon the basis of the giver and the beneficiary. And the 'levels' do not explain which one is higher than the other. All are imperative. I was gifted with an experience early in 2008 while travelling with a group of dedicated entrepreneurs through India to see how we could be more effective in our giving. I was blessed to have one particular experience that made me think about what 'effective giving' really meant. We were in a small town one day. Four of us had just called a taxi to take us to another town in the vicinities. We bargained with the driver with care as our hotel staff had told us beforehand that we could be duped since we were not local. We stopped in front of the local train station for a short break on the way. While the others disappeared off to use the bathroom, I started a conversation with our taxi driver standing next to the taxi. With very limited English and a full smile exposing his blackened front teeth, he told me that he had a house on the outskirts of the town and he had a young wife and two children who went to the local school - I started to feel connected to him. I patted him on the back for having an affectionate family and told him that I also had two kids of the same age as his. When the others came back the driver instantly asked us to come to his house for food. I thought it was just a formality he wanted to convey at first. However, after leaving us at the centre of the town, he was particular that he would wait for us till we were done with our traveling around the town. And he actually did. I was in fact quite taken aback to see him still standing by the side of the road next to his taxi even after an hour. We hopped back into the taxi and he whizzed off up the road to where his home was. When we arrived we were actually quite shocked to see how he was living. It was almost like the same condition (if not worse) to the lifestyle of people living in slums we had visited previously. From the nice new taxi he was driving, who could have imagined As he reached the narrow open street in between shanties that were made with rough concrete blocks and mud walls, we felt guilty about accepting his invitation. For a brief moment I was nonplussed. "How could I accept the hospitality of this man who didn't seem to have anything at all and I didn't even bring any gift that could be a help to his family", I told myself. As we went inside his house, we saw a vessel and a small stove on the floor. His timid young wife raised her head in surprise and withdrew into the small store room (a cupboard size) adjacent to it. As I took in the scene, I saw the neighbours residing next door giving her a few cups across the broken down concrete fence. The young couple did not even have sufficient teacups in their house. There was a single room fitted with one single bed and a pretty old galvanised box near it. The cab driver swiftly took out three hand-woven rugs from the galvanised box and placed it neatly on the small space of the mud floor keeping one on the bed. Soon the cups of tea and some snacks arrived. All his children and children from the neighborhood came to see us and stood in the doorway. All six of us were totally squashed in the tiny room. I curiously asked him where all his children were sleeping. I thought they probably had another space somewhere. To my surprise, he cheerfully pointed the chest and said it was their bed with his beaming smile. He happily told us that he was an amateur dancer in the town and showed us some plaques on the sill above the bed. Enthusiastic to show us his dancing proficiency, he ran outside all at once. From somewhere music came flowing into the tiny room. He had no apparatus for music within the house, it was coming from outside. Surprised, I looked around to see him reversing his vehicle towards the back of his house keeping the doors open with the radio of the car blaring forth! The time moved fast (with his dancing and the many more cups of tea that followed) and very soon it was time to thank them for their great warmth and courtesy and make our move. As we got ready to leave and express our gratitude to him and his wife, he pulled out the best of all the rugs he had, and just gave it to us. It was one of the very few things he owned. It was impossible to believe that he was offering it to us. We all respectfully refused his gift and came out saying goodbye to everyone waving at us. We got perplexed about this whole thing. Should we have offered some cash to the family as they obviously had limited means? Should we have agreed to take his wonderful gift? As I was thinking about this life-changing experience a few days later, I thought about the refusal of his gift. He looked disappointed that we didn't take the gift. It wasn't just about saying no to the gift that stuck in my mind. I realised that the feeling of restlessness I felt was in reality the result of seeing him as less privileged. I was feeling that I couldn't probably receive anything from someone who owned too little. But did he really have so little? Maybe he had more - a lot more. Maybe the greatest gift we could have given him then was to receive his gift in total respect and gratitude. All actions of gifting and getting are essential for us to fill our world with plenty and contentment equally for both giver and getter. We can begin doing this instead of assessing and defending one over the other. The perfect act of gifting and getting needs no further clarification. Manoj Sinha's words echo in my mind once again, "these are customers, not victims." I can imagine the smiling faces of the villagers who are now proud to have electricity in their villages and the children who now can read books and learn in their homes at night. About the Author: Discover more about how Buy1GIVE1 (BOGO) can transform your business using Cause Marketing.
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