A new development is revolutionizing many lives in the hamlets of India by bringing brightness where there used to be blackness.
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.
Growing up in rural Bihar State, Manoj Sinha knew what it was like to sit in the dark. Being an engineer with Intel Corporation he had all the skills to make a life long idea come alive. He led the development of his electricity equipment that generates power from rice husks and other farming waste and now he sells it to villages across India.
Sinha is what could be called a social entrepreneur because he feels business is a solution to key social issues. "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 delineate there were eight segments to giving as a way to see this. So, let me chart out the eight differences; which in effect are often 'stages' of giving as well.
Stage one: Urgency - rescuing and supporting others who are struck by natural disaster, epidemic diseases or other uncontrollable circumstances.
Stage two: Relief - providing relief from long-standing hunger, poverty, diseases, handicaps or discrimination which otherwise would continue or worsened because of the lack of information, education or resources.
Phase three: Curing and defending - morally, bodily and spiritually. Many people carry scars that may be invisible but strongly constricting their lives. Giving the cure to release the long-standing suffering creates more chances for them while giving necessary defense gives them a feeling of security.
Phase four: Edification - giving better edification, awareness and skill imparting to create empowered and innovative solutions to generating resources while helping people to discover their exclusive talent to succeed.
Phase five: Innovative investment - giving a helping hand, cash or material to those who have the ability to make a change. This gets weighed many times as the materials increase and is passed on to several others who again create more out of the chances given.
Phase six: Maintainability - working collectively involving the people in the local surroundings, creating maintainable society - ecologically and communally.
Phase seven: Empowerment - enabling and motivating the people to release their true ability and power to make a change. In this group of sharing, the aim of giving changes from 'giving to the people who want' to 'giving people a chance to give to others' and to the society.
Phase eight: Caring - just doing whatever we want to do to cherish and care for others. No tactic or expected result exists in this phase of giving. 'Giving' does not even exist here in the conventional sense of the word, as there is no sense of ownership or reasoning or yearning to alter anything. This is where we do not even have to worry about anything, we give as a part of our own delightful sense of being.
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 bonding
Two: Sense of wellbeing
Three: reprieve from ache (our own)
Four: Gratification for our own understanding, talents and situations
Five: Long-term sense of commitment and contentment for our own life
Six: Improved atmosphere for our own life and for the lives of all those we value and cherish
Seven: Soul fulfilling inspiration and dedication to our own purpose
Eight: Care
Giving has many levels and experiences depending on the giver and the receiver. And the 'stages' do not describe which one is more important than the other. All are necessary.
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 chose to stop in front of the local train station for a short interval en route to the town. While the others went to use restrooms, I struck up a conversation with the driver of the taxi, standing nearby. With his limited English vocabulary and a smiling face that showed his black front teeth to advantage, he told me that he lived in the outskirts of the town and that he had a young wife and two kids who attended the local school - I began to feel a relationship with him.
I congratulated him on having such a loving family and told him that I also had two children similar ages to his. When the others returned he spontaneously invited us to come to his house for lunch. I thought it was just a friendly courtesy he wanted to show at first. However, after dropping us off in the town centre, he insisted that he would wait for us until we finished our exploration in town. And he did. I was actually quite surprised to see him still waiting at the side of the road standing next to his taxi more than hour later. We jumped back into the taxi and he zoomed off up the road to where his family lived.
When we landed there we were quite surprised to see the way he was living. It was in fact quite similar (if not worse) to the existence of the slum dwellers we had visited before that. From the bright new taxi he was driving, who could have pictured this
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 walked into his house, we saw a pan and small stove on the mud floor. His very shy wife nodded blushing in surprise and disappeared into the small storeroom (a cupboard size) next to it. As I looked in, I saw the next-door neighbours handing over some teacups to his wife over the crumbled concrete fence. They didn't even have extra teacups in their house. There was only one small room fitted out with one single bed and an old galvanised chest next to it.
The driver hastily drew out three hand-woven mats from the trunk and spread them out on whatever little space there was on the mud floor and put one on the bed.
Steaming cups of tea and hot snacks arrived soon. Both his kids as well as kids from the neighbouring houses came to see us and remained at the doorway. The six of us could just squeeze into the tiny room. I was curious to know where his children were sleeping. I thought maybe they had another space somewhere. To my astonishment, he just pointed at the chest and said with his happy smile that it was their bed.
He gleefully told us that he was a dancing champion in town and pointed to some trophies on the shelf above the bed. Keen to show us his dancing skills he suddenly dashed outside. From nowhere music filled the tiny room. He didn't have any music system in the house, it was coming from outside. I was curious so I stood up to see him reversing his taxi right against the back wall of his house with the doors wide open with car radio on full volume!
With his dancing and the cups of tea his wife produced, time moved quickly and it was soon time to thank them for their wonderful hospitality and proceed on our way. As we got up to leave and give our thanks to him and his wife, he took the best of the rugs he had, rolled it and gave it to us. It was practically one of the handful of good things he had. It was difficult to comprehend the enormity of the gesture.
We all respectfully refused his gift and came out saying goodbye to every one 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 nothing much? Maybe he had much more - many more.
Maybe the real present we could have given him then was to receive his present in utmost deference and thankfulness.
All acts of giving and receiving are necessary for us to fill our world with abundance and fulfillment equally for both giver and receiver. We can start doing this instead of judging and justifying one over another. The pure act of giving and receiving requires no further explanation.
Manoj Sinha's words continue to reverberate in my mind, "these are customers, not victims." I can picture the happy faces of the rural folk who are now pleased to have power in their hamlets and the kids who now can read books and happily do their homework at night.
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.
Growing up in rural Bihar State, Manoj Sinha knew what it was like to sit in the dark. Being an engineer with Intel Corporation he had all the skills to make a life long idea come alive. He led the development of his electricity equipment that generates power from rice husks and other farming waste and now he sells it to villages across India.
Sinha is what could be called a social entrepreneur because he feels business is a solution to key social issues. "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 delineate there were eight segments to giving as a way to see this. So, let me chart out the eight differences; which in effect are often 'stages' of giving as well.
Stage one: Urgency - rescuing and supporting others who are struck by natural disaster, epidemic diseases or other uncontrollable circumstances.
Stage two: Relief - providing relief from long-standing hunger, poverty, diseases, handicaps or discrimination which otherwise would continue or worsened because of the lack of information, education or resources.
Phase three: Curing and defending - morally, bodily and spiritually. Many people carry scars that may be invisible but strongly constricting their lives. Giving the cure to release the long-standing suffering creates more chances for them while giving necessary defense gives them a feeling of security.
Phase four: Edification - giving better edification, awareness and skill imparting to create empowered and innovative solutions to generating resources while helping people to discover their exclusive talent to succeed.
Phase five: Innovative investment - giving a helping hand, cash or material to those who have the ability to make a change. This gets weighed many times as the materials increase and is passed on to several others who again create more out of the chances given.
Phase six: Maintainability - working collectively involving the people in the local surroundings, creating maintainable society - ecologically and communally.
Phase seven: Empowerment - enabling and motivating the people to release their true ability and power to make a change. In this group of sharing, the aim of giving changes from 'giving to the people who want' to 'giving people a chance to give to others' and to the society.
Phase eight: Caring - just doing whatever we want to do to cherish and care for others. No tactic or expected result exists in this phase of giving. 'Giving' does not even exist here in the conventional sense of the word, as there is no sense of ownership or reasoning or yearning to alter anything. This is where we do not even have to worry about anything, we give as a part of our own delightful sense of being.
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 bonding
Two: Sense of wellbeing
Three: reprieve from ache (our own)
Four: Gratification for our own understanding, talents and situations
Five: Long-term sense of commitment and contentment for our own life
Six: Improved atmosphere for our own life and for the lives of all those we value and cherish
Seven: Soul fulfilling inspiration and dedication to our own purpose
Eight: Care
Giving has many levels and experiences depending on the giver and the receiver. And the 'stages' do not describe which one is more important than the other. All are necessary.
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 chose to stop in front of the local train station for a short interval en route to the town. While the others went to use restrooms, I struck up a conversation with the driver of the taxi, standing nearby. With his limited English vocabulary and a smiling face that showed his black front teeth to advantage, he told me that he lived in the outskirts of the town and that he had a young wife and two kids who attended the local school - I began to feel a relationship with him.
I congratulated him on having such a loving family and told him that I also had two children similar ages to his. When the others returned he spontaneously invited us to come to his house for lunch. I thought it was just a friendly courtesy he wanted to show at first. However, after dropping us off in the town centre, he insisted that he would wait for us until we finished our exploration in town. And he did. I was actually quite surprised to see him still waiting at the side of the road standing next to his taxi more than hour later. We jumped back into the taxi and he zoomed off up the road to where his family lived.
When we landed there we were quite surprised to see the way he was living. It was in fact quite similar (if not worse) to the existence of the slum dwellers we had visited before that. From the bright new taxi he was driving, who could have pictured this
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 walked into his house, we saw a pan and small stove on the mud floor. His very shy wife nodded blushing in surprise and disappeared into the small storeroom (a cupboard size) next to it. As I looked in, I saw the next-door neighbours handing over some teacups to his wife over the crumbled concrete fence. They didn't even have extra teacups in their house. There was only one small room fitted out with one single bed and an old galvanised chest next to it.
The driver hastily drew out three hand-woven mats from the trunk and spread them out on whatever little space there was on the mud floor and put one on the bed.
Steaming cups of tea and hot snacks arrived soon. Both his kids as well as kids from the neighbouring houses came to see us and remained at the doorway. The six of us could just squeeze into the tiny room. I was curious to know where his children were sleeping. I thought maybe they had another space somewhere. To my astonishment, he just pointed at the chest and said with his happy smile that it was their bed.
He gleefully told us that he was a dancing champion in town and pointed to some trophies on the shelf above the bed. Keen to show us his dancing skills he suddenly dashed outside. From nowhere music filled the tiny room. He didn't have any music system in the house, it was coming from outside. I was curious so I stood up to see him reversing his taxi right against the back wall of his house with the doors wide open with car radio on full volume!
With his dancing and the cups of tea his wife produced, time moved quickly and it was soon time to thank them for their wonderful hospitality and proceed on our way. As we got up to leave and give our thanks to him and his wife, he took the best of the rugs he had, rolled it and gave it to us. It was practically one of the handful of good things he had. It was difficult to comprehend the enormity of the gesture.
We all respectfully refused his gift and came out saying goodbye to every one 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 nothing much? Maybe he had much more - many more.
Maybe the real present we could have given him then was to receive his present in utmost deference and thankfulness.
All acts of giving and receiving are necessary for us to fill our world with abundance and fulfillment equally for both giver and receiver. We can start doing this instead of judging and justifying one over another. The pure act of giving and receiving requires no further explanation.
Manoj Sinha's words continue to reverberate in my mind, "these are customers, not victims." I can picture the happy faces of the rural folk who are now pleased to have power in their hamlets and the kids who now can read books and happily do their homework at night.
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