A new experiment is completely changing lives in the rural areas of India by bringing luminosity where there used to be darkness.
The New York Times published an article titled, “Husk Power for India”. Electricity, which is prevalent in the lives of many in developed nations, is a pure luxury in remote areas of developing ones. What was once fed to animals now is used to generate electricity – rice husks.
Raised in the rural state of Bihar, Manoj Sinha understood what it was like to sit in darkness. Being an engineer with Intel Corporation he had all the ability to bring alive the dream of a lifetime. He led the advancement of his power equipment that produces electricity from rice husks and other farm wastes and now he trades it to hamlets 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: Necessity – saving and helping others who are afflicted by natural catastrophe, contagious diseases or other unmanageable conditions.
Stage two: Reprieve – providing reprieve from long-standing malnutrition, penury, illnesses, handicaps or inequity which otherwise would prolong or get worsened because of the lack of perception, edification 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.
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.
Stage six: Sustainability – working together involving the people in the local environment, creating sustainable community – environmentally and socially.
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 find is that at each of these eight stages of giving there are different things that the giver receives.
One: Sense of bonding
Two: Sense of contentment
Three: respite from hurt (our own)
Four: Thankfulness for our own ideas, gifts and conditions
Five: Long-term sense of involvement and fulfillment for our own life
Six: Better ambiance for our own life and for the lives of others we treasure and revere
Seven: Soul gratifying encouragement and devotion to our own purpose
Eight: Love
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 lucky to have an experience early in 2008 while journeying with a group of devoted entrepreneurs across India to see how we could be more productive in our helping. I was particularly happy to have one outstanding encounter that led me to think about what ‘actual giving’ really meant.
We were in a little town one day. Four of us had just booked a taxi to take us to another town nearby. We negotiated with the driver carefully as our hotel staff had warned us in advance about the rip-off we might experience seeing we were not local.
We halted briefly in front of the local train station for a short recess on the way. While the others went to use the restroom, I tried to chat with our taxi driver standing near his vehicle. With his limited knowledge of English and a wonderful smile that showed his blackened front teeth, he told me that he had a house on the suburbs of the town and he had a sweet wife and two lovely kids who went to the local school – I felt a strong bonding with him.
I appreciated the fact of his having such a wonderful family and told him that I too had two little ones of almost the same ages as his. When the others were back the driver suddenly invited us to come to his house and have lunch. I took it only as a formality that was customary courtesy. But after taking us to the town center and leaving us there, he told us that he would wait for us until all our wandering in the town was over. And he really did. I was actually quite astonished to see him still remaining glued to the side of the road next to his taxi more than one hour later. We got into the taxi and he drove fast up the road to where he had his family.
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 the car turned into the narrow unsealed road between the hut-like houses that were constructed with crudely made concrete blocks and painted mud walls, we felt contrite about having agreed to his invitation. For a brief moment I felt mortified. “How could I have exploited the generosity of a man who didn’t seem to have anything and I didn’t even get any edible stuff or presents for his family”, I thought.
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.
Hot cups of tea came pretty fast and so did some snacks. His kids as well as all the little ones in the neighbourhood came to see us and stood around near the door. All six of us were totally wedged into the small room. I asked him with surprise where all his children slept. I thought they might be having another space somewhere. To my utter surprise, he pointed the chest and happily said that it was their sleeping space.
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 courteously begged off his gift and moved out waving goodbye to all the people waving back at us. We got real baffled about the whole affair. Should we have paid them something as they surely had only too little money? Should we have consented to take the cherished gift he made us?
As I was thinking about this awe-inspiring experience after a few days, I considered our begging off his gift. He looked crest-fallen that we didn’t accept the gift. It wasn’t only the rejecting of the gift that remained 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 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 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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