Joe Gerstandt | keynote speaker, freedom fighter, freak-flag flier

I’m going to try and post link to this page on my blog. I really like this site and the interfaith connection. We volunteer with the homeless through interfaith.

I love people and organizations like your friends! These awesome girls & their stories touches my heart and gave me chills… as well they should have.

I totally agree with your post! Sharing our stories helps people understand other people, situations and circumstances outside their own homes, community, small towns, outside their ‘own worlds’! At least we hope it does in a lot of cases! 🙂

I hope it’s ok that I have you on my ‘favorites’ feeds on my blog. 🙂

Have a great weekend and Happy Easter with your family!
Coreen

Thanks to Joe Gerstandt recommendation of this blog for Global Cultural Diversity Films – JAIN ENLIGTHENMENT members …a group of filmmakers and filmgoers focusing on promoting global cultural and religious diversity on a worldwide basis –
After reviewing the short digital videos bites above of young educated people as part of the world community from different religions … listening to their words on their personal religons, I beheld an incredible "awakening" –
As a New York filmmaker, I have just returned after 5 weeks in rural India … most of the time spent on researching and videotaping some of the poorest of poor villages (estimated number of 600 million) where over 70% of the population survive on $2 a day … It seemed unimaginable when I read the figures, but when I visited some of the 20 villages in Mewat district of Haryana, I saw how one person’s vision can start altering the poverty factor.
For example, Harvard graduate, Dr. Surender M. Sehgal, from Des Moines, IA, sold his "seed" business, and in 1999 set up a financial endowment to help rural villages in India by choosing 4 devastated Muslim villages in a highly populated, rich Hindu State. It did not matter that he was a HIndu from Amritsar working for the welfare of Muslim villages. What he saw was the devastating conditions of farmers’ lives – mere human beings fighting against all natural disasters – weather changes, poor rainfall and droughts. Instead of dictating what he felt was "good" for them … he invited the poverty strickened villagers to contribute their own suggestions to improve their lives.
For the past ten years, the Sehgal Family Foundation (SFF) discovered the "secret" to bring dignity into the lives of poor farmers and their families. It was not difficult to see what most poor farmers needed – water – for their dried up fields. Next, the mere essentials of daily living – food, clothes and a roof over their heads, with vocational education for their children and young adults. Then there the health and welfare of family members, and may be, electricity in the villages ? The list demanded the bare fundamentals of human existence.
Never forget. Poor people also possess a great sense of pride and the deep desire to learn. Charity may be forthcoming, but these farmers eventually requested they wanted nothing for "free" as part of their dignity and pride. They were willing to accept the initial financial help and new learning for the upkeep of their fields, children and wives … but once they were confident and saw the improvement which began bettering their lifestyle … they came forward to "collectively pay" for the essential of their village welfare.
For ten years, SFF social workers taught farmers inexpensive alternative ways to water their fields, teaching them through life-skill programs and introduced new methods of "water management and harvesting," resulting in two to three more crops annually, than only one poor harvest overcome by seasonal droughts.
SFF built schools, community centers and hired village teachers where children were encouraged to attended daily, because their hardworking parents knew that their child was given one good meal a day ! Soon with good governance management, the village Panchayat (chieftains) saw gradual economic growth and requested solar lighting so children could read and study after sunset, while young farmers attended agricultural improvement courses. SFF teachers and social workers stressed on the need for cleaner civic habits, water drainage and sanitation, building outdoor bathrooms in each brick home, instead of everyone running into the fields. They learned to bathe in clean water and master healthy habits in cooking food and drinking water.
In 2008, SFF built the Institute of Rural Research & Development (IRRAD) in Gurgaon, and openly invite NGOs, NRIs and corporate social responsibility (CSR) organizations to arrange and/or attend meetings and share their rural research, in order to bring widespread development to bridge the gap in some of the 410 villages across Mewat district. They realize their work is only "a drop in the ocean" when compared to SFF’s future goals ahead….
Today, educated young people, students, professors, non-profit sponsors, etc., from Universities across the world are "interns" during the summer weeks share the SFF/IRRAD experience. Most candidates come to teach English, agricultural empowering methods for farmers, good governance, empowerment of women, etc. They spend time in the villages, compare rural education, introducing solar energy systems i.e. building solar ovens, etc., and helping in spreading the word …
Soon I will be uploading short video bites showing how farmers no longer move on bullock-driven carts but Harley Davidson motorbikes and scooters, where a great deal is being done to move the statistics of 2% of young girls school attendance" and shows that 65% of women are permitted to learn home economics and regularly attend sewing classes. It is the glittering smiles of their faces that translate to the small changes taking place in improving their lives as wives and mothers.