‘Project Help India’ Director and General Secretary Daisy Samual - conference organiser and speaker with delegates
It’s funny don’t you think, that every day seems to be the ‘International Day of something’
Yesterday, Saturday 20th March, was the ‘UN International day of Happiness’ and today, Sunday 21st of March is International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Personally, I love that both days are back-to-back surly if we focus on kindness and eliminating racial discrimination this world would be a much happier place hey!
The website for ‘UN International day of Happiness’ says;
With our world facing unprecedented challenges and wellbeing matters more than ever …in these difficult times, let’s take action to be happier and kinder, together.
According to the World happiness Report, Finland this year was ranked as the happiest country on earth for the fourth year in a row. Australia was ranked 12th (yet why do we seem to complain so much?!). Not surprisingly, India does not make the list. Yet, this past week, in one of the most remote places on the planet, a jungle village in the foothills of the Himalayas, a group of one hundred women had the time of their lives.
Delegates arriving for SHINE-21
It was here that my Australian family visited back in 2012. We were honoured and incredibly privileged to be welcomed to this place, some of the first ever westerners to ever meet these people. We were impacted and changed as we heard their stories and learnt about their Muslim culture, traditions and the daily challenges due to poverty that they faced. As the work of Project help India expanded over the years that followed, the village elders asked if we could establish a school for their children. Here, close to 100% of the children (including their parents and the generations before) have never been able to access a school due to their isolation, the distance and dangers of travelling to school, and lack of resources. The school at Village Kadarganj in now one of three small village centres, all in close proximity to each other run by Project Help India. Through these schools we have expanded our delivery of education to include parent seminars on topics such as health and hygiene, anti- human trafficking of children and young women, responding to domestic violence, drug and alcohol awareness, and now our annual Women’s Empowerment SHINE Conference.
This is a significant ‘first’ and this is why we couldn’t be happier. All members of the Project Help team are locals. They have worked incredibly hard, and stretched themselves beyond their initial self-confidence to pull off three separate events over the past two weeks to so something remarkable. Through their up-skilling, personal awareness and knowledge of local matters, we are seeing the powerful generational community change and transformation that Project Help India seeks to make happen.
Our SHINE conferences in 2018, 2019 and 2021 have brought a message that for the majority of these village women have never heard before. It is a message that girls and women have value, worth and purpose. For the first time in their lives, some women aged 40 (and even older) have also learned about their menstrual cycle and what is their period. They have learned about women’s legal rights, that girls should go to school and can study at university, and for nearly all of them, the conference gave them the opportunity to rise above their fears and to dance freely together. From our experience and all that we heard and observed, the beautiful marquee that we hired for the occasion was filled with inspired talks and learning, tears, laughter, joy and happiness.
These women daily endure the harshest of experiences brought about by living in poverty. SHINE Conference however, provided them with a day of happiness - far greater than any day in Finland, Australia or any where else for that matter. Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, whose donations, financial support and prayers paid for this Conference, Village Kadarganj last week was the happiest place on Earth.
Click here to watch a YouTube slide show of photos taken at the Village Kadarganj SHINE Conference.
