Excerpts from the Speech of Ms. Rani Dhaliwal

Good morning. Before I begin, thank you for inviting me here, thank you for all these wonderful women who I would love to spend time with and understand your stories because we all have stories to share and connect with.

My focus today is on what I do outside of being a woman and a family raiser and nurturer, mother, sister, daughter. I have always had this feeling inside on what more I can do? So my journey took me on to what can I do for women, children and on education.

This saying actually says it all for me. It says "at some time in everyone’s life, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flames by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle our inner spirit". And I believe all of you are here because of Guruji and the organization because they have done a wonderful job in rekindling everybody’s spirits. And that is the beginning of any journey.

This slide basically highlights some of the initiatives I have supported. Parveen has also been involved in "I Meditate Humber"

Some of my trips led me to Botswana in Africa and Malawi. Many there are stricken with Aids and HIV. I was involved in a program that provided funding and I was going to see how effective that program was. I was expecting to see despair, poverty, malnutrition. In fact what I saw were very strong women who were so happy. The bottom slide shows their happiness and when I was there, they danced, they sang. Within the limited resources that we were able to provide them, they were able to create a community with food, shelter and bare bones of education.

There was another program which was funded where women set up a pig farm. They had piglets and they gave those piglets to other women so that other women could create pig farms and earn money to support their children and live in society. So these women were empowered.

This next slide is about the women in the Amazon region - a region run by male dominated drug lords. These women fought against the men in the society to get a piece of land where they would grow cocoa through the program that I was involved in. We set up a small factory that they ran and produced cocoa and chocolate, sold it and with the resources, were able to create a school and positivity in the community that they lived in.

As I grew up, I had to juggle between East and West. From the employment perspective, I was always competing with white males. I didn’t go for the beers with the men to get promotions or get engaged but I had to work hard to prove it to myself and others to get the promotions that I got. But what was required was the balance. When I go home, I am the Eastern person. I am the mother, I have in laws, parents and husband and at work, its decision making, making sure things get done and resources get allocated, and results created for the 30,000 students in our college. So that’s my challenge. I live between these two worlds and each time I come to India, I relive and reconnect.

The key points I want to leave you with is my sense of what I have learnt over time which is open yourself as its only by giving that you will receive. When you close yourself, you cannot receive anything.

Use all your senses. We always use our common senses but see how you can see more into the individual. Don’t judge them rightaway.

Accept that unlearning is more difficult than learning. The ladies in Botswana and Peru had to unlearn. They had to challenge everything they had learnt to achieve what they had to achieve. Unlearning is much more difficult and while we nurture our children, it’s important that we nurture them with that balanced approach.

Trust that in the fullness of time, things happen. That is the biggest learning for me. I am a planner, doer, decision maker so I expect things to happen and through meeting other women, I realize that in fullness of time, God provides us all with things that we absolutely need and he puts us in a position to do more. That’s exactly what I do with my volunteer work.

And lastly, be positive because without this positivity, this connection and this rekindling of our spirits, we just cannot do more.