Laddership: Spring 2018

"When the well-being of all; effortlessly, becomes the center of all our work, and when we serve selflessly from an absolute persistence to tune more towards internal transformation along with external service then a collective strength emerges. Which then results in an inner and outer transformation simultaneously."

The year of 2017 was a year of rich explorations, many new ideas, failure clubs, moonshots and an eagerness to dive into the depths of so many questions, edges, paradoxes and narratives collectively. With a year full of learnings; it has been a wonderful journey of ‘work in progress’ as we continue to unfold our ‘slow stories’.

Over the last few years, many Laddership Circles in India and even around the world have explored various themes, stories, and edges around the nuances of inner transformation; that have held a lot of value for change makers and community organizers.

Now, as we dive into the Spring of 2018, yet another chapter of self inquiry and collective exploration begins! Here’s a sneak peak into the journeys of 14 friends that are to embark together for the next 8 weeks of deep diving through the lenses of their Labor Of Love (LOL) projects!

Circle 1:

Aabha Gupta:
A longtime volunteer of the MBL local community, Aabha is a nutritionist, health coach, a fitness instructor and seeker with a heart of gold based in Pune, India. Always brewing up deliciously nutritious concoctions for all to enjoy, in recent years, she's been exploring how "Being the change, changes the being”. Seeing her in action as she preps 3 meals a day for over 100 participants in any given workshop, is a treat to watch. With an ever-lasting smile and a child-like excitement, she is always ready to serve at any opportunity that knocks on her door which encourage a healthy lifestyle.

Akanksha Agarwal:
With a colorful journey and a rainbow of experiences, Akanksha is always ready to roll up her sleeves and get to work whenever she comes across a child in her periphery. With an immense passion towards education and educating every child that crosses her path, she never gives up the hope of lighting a candle in their lives and in her heart. Having worked many years with kids on G.B Road and Schools like Riverside, organizations like Gandhi Fellowship, Kaivalya Foundation or on projects like Design for Change - it was time for her to indulge into her own dream project Tarkeybein that accelerates the process of building reading skills in primary school children with the help of phonetics. Through the journey of Laddership she wishes to deepen her own understanding that can facilitate in taking her dream project to the next stage.

Anurekha Jain:
Dr. Anurekha Jain as she is known in the professional world; is a Pharmacist and a community awareness expert. She has worked as a Research Associate in TIFAC - Center of Relevance and Excellence in Green Pharmacy under the Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India for last 15 years. She has published over 100 research papers and has already authored 3 books. However, driven by passion and inspiration from some of the proclaimed Nobel Peace Prize winners and Padmashree Awardees, she found her heart's calling which led her to birth Anokhi Care as a social entrepreneur. Through Anokhi, she continues to work towards environmental protection, building health awareness, providing skill development, developing eco-friendly products, offering workshops on sustainable menstruation and development of nutritional food. With a beginners mind and an ever readiness to continue to be a student of life, she looks forward to go deeper in her journey through the Laddership circle.

Cletus Zuzarte:
A social worker and an avid dog lover, Cletus works for The Centre For Social Action as a Quality Assurance Director. His work is mainly centered around working with the Kathkari Tribals and marginalized communities in Raigad District, Maharastra who are educationally backward. Through the introduction of supplementary classes for vulnerable children, youth seminars, and teacher trainings, he hopes to bring socio-economic empowerment in these communities. When he is not at work, he is busy tending and feeding dogs in his neighborhood who have been left to die out on the streets. Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and Eckhart Tolle, he continues to learn through their lives & writings and wishes to imbibe such qualities that can become a way of his life. He believes in the inherent goodness of humanity and is deeply inspired to search for goodness in everyone.

Divesh Chanana:
Divesh works as a Brand and Marketing Consultant, with his expertise to provide market research and project analysis towards a Brand's national & international recognition. With clients such as Audi, BMW, Mercedes, MasterCard and counting, there has never been any looking back in his professional career. However, in-spite of many years of his experience in the field of transaction, he continues to believe that money is not the only capital required to sustain. Since his childhood he has been holding questions of life's purpose and the understanding of interconnection with life. An avid sports lover himself, he dreams to open a sports school for children from the weaker section of society as he truly believes that sports is a great teacher of life. With many unanswered questions and a deep passion to serve, he looks forward dive together collectively in the Laddership Circle.

Neeti Walavalkar:
Neeti discovered, after leaving a long time comfortable corporate job and believing totally in the plans of the Universe, that life has been terrifically amazing. Trying to find answers about life from a very young age led her to volunteer with the blind, the under-privileged and elderly. One thing led to another and her journey into self exploration led her to Service Space. Neeti is an avid traveler and nature lover, meditates daily and hosts Awakin Gatherings once a week. She strongly believes that service does not start when you have something to give; it blossoms naturally when you have nothing left to take. Pranita lives in Pune, where she is blessed with a wonderful life partner, a son, an adorable Lhasa Apso, a little flower garden on the window, and sparrows on the sill that make her family complete.

Prarthana Sharma:
Inspired by a very personal experience of mental health and the social stigma around it, Prarthana initiated her first start-up as a Co-Director of a mental health foundation called ‘Atma Prakash’. Her dream is to create a platform for psychologists and interested enthusiasts to spread awareness and provide intervention to address difficult emotions of anxiety, depression & addiction by reducing social stigma, providing education and bringing intervention towards the current leading mental health situations. Her recent experience at an HHH retreat in Ahmedabad and a heart-full conversation with Jayesh Bhai left a deep impact within her heart to continue following this path that is driven by ‘love’ and not fear’. With sheer excitement and a big smile, she looks forward to engage, learn & grow together in the weeks to come.


Volunteers:

Vidhi Desai:
Trained in Psychology, Vidhi works with specially-abled children. Her energy, smile, and quiet acts of love light up any place around her. She offers this energy as a gift through her voluntary projects. She anchors Karma Meals in Mumbai where volunteers come together to connect with friends on street in a meaningful way and share a meal. Recently co-anchored a one-day retreat that brought around 40 service-hearted friends in Mumbai. Every Tuesday you will find Vidhi spreading smiles at a cancer institute while spending time with terminally ill children. The commute each way takes couple autos and train change but the mundane doesn't deter her spirit.

Jaideep Rao:
He is a techie by education, based in Bangalore, India. In his initial days after Graduation, during the day he worked in software development and by nights, weekends, and all other hours he serves around the clock—orchestrating a volunteer-run Saturday school for underprivileged rural youth, developing an open-source values-based educational curriculum, amplifying stories of unknown change makers and supporting an annual inclusion summit for individuals with disabilities. Since last year or so he has given up his job and embraced service as the way of life and living and provides great inspiration to his students by being the change.

Preeti D'Mello:
She had a thriving career as an Executive & Leadership Coach, Developmental Speaker, Integral Facilitator. But now has reached a stage of life where service and spirituality are non-negotiable. Looking to create a space for Business with service and conscious business approaches, she built the process of initiating her next stage of work in Leadership for Social Impact and Personal Development for Peace and Productivity. Her idea is to create learning and developmental interventions that are one to one, one to many and eventually many to many.

Swara Pandya:
Swara didi - as she is fondly called by a bunch of young service warriors within her community is an infinite source of inspiration wherever she goes. Her smiling spirit and a heart of service is endearing in all she does, whether it’s sharing presence with a rural village woman’s soft soul, or deepening engagements in the field of education, or visiting Gandhian elders and capturing their stories of simplicity, or even anchoring a pay-it-forward restaurant in her hometown of Baroda, India. Most recently, she engaged in a 6-week internship with 35 college students which became a huge catalyst in building a strong local volunteer community in Baroda.

Meghna Banker:
She is a dedicated servant “ladder” based at the Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad, India. A talented filmmaker, graphic designer, and artist, to many of us, she’s perfected the art of invisible service—whether in supporting “heARTists in action” with Wisdom Crafts, hosting weekly meditation gatherings in her home (with some remarkable stories!), or as a down-to-earth mother, where she continually inspires with many profound lessons from her 7-year-old daughter.


Circle 2:

Jignasha Pandya:
Jignasha is one of the core anchors of the Baroda MBL community & a long time volunteer of the ServiceSpace ecosystem. She is also a development professional with over 10 years of experience & a passion for community-based innovations that are wholesome in nature. An inspiration to many, she is one of the strongest grounding forces amongst her friends, family and the community. With a rich, diverse and many deep experiences in her service journey, she continues to remain humble and connected to her roots. Her face is forever effervescent and radiant with the biggest smile no matter what task is at hand for her. Whether it is attending to the home and family needs, learning from the elders of the community, curating videos of KarmaTube, hosting Awakin Circles, being an invisible ladder to many of the local community emergences or even serving to whatever life throws in front of her; her strength and stillness are a direct reflection of her committed practices of meditation with an intense clarity towards her own self purification & inner transformation.

Mona Madan:
An avid reader, blogger, certified digital content writer, researcher and a practicing architect for the past 20 years, Mona is now keen to contribute and serve the world by leveraging technology. Being in a physically challenged space herself, she is determined to use the online learning experiences and continue to stay engaged and rooted in a community to serve & learn together. With a deep concern towards the fragmented and broken education system, her hope is to find positive ways to connect and heal these spaces through the help of technology. With a zest to redefine the meaning in her life, she looks forward to learn with everyone though these Laddership circles.

Nikita Desai:
Having dedicated her life to service at a very young age, Nikita has found her anchor in the form of seva (service) and sadhana (worship). A dedicated devotee of Shrimad Rajchandraji, she serves the Shrimad Ashram ecosystem in Dharampur full heartedly as she juggles different roles with the biggest of smiles. Passionate about value education, she has spent a lot of time volunteering for the tribal schools in Dharampur. She has been grateful to have met many inspiring folks who lead with inner transformation, and that in-turn has given her a lot of hope to continue explorations on that path herself. Her recent experience on a walking pilgrimage with no money or phone, became a huge catalyst in redefining her path of service and stillness. After being active for the past many years, she is called to pause for inner reflection and is looking forward to Laddership Circles to co-create the learning experiences together.

Rajalakshmi Sriram:
A life-long student at heart and an academician, Rajalakshmi has been a professor at the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at MS University, Baroda. After 23 years of experience in teaching, research and applied work she has now retired, only to find new inspiration where she can continue to be a student of life in the journey of inner and outer service. An active volunteer and a respected elder of the local MBL community of Baroda she is keen to learn more about the deeper nuances of life as she walks on the path of service for the rest of her life. When she is not working, she finds her self engrossed in getting acquainted with technology and current forms of communications in order to stay up-to-date with the current generation. With an energy of a 16 year old and an attitude of a beginners mind, she is super excited to don the hat of a student as she begins a new chapter of her life.

Sandeep Malhotra:
Sandeep worked for eight years as a Senior Project Manager in a California based consulting firm called 'Great Place to Work’ that is dedicated to help organizations understand and practice the qualities and behaviors that lead to the creation of great workplaces. Recently he has been deeply engaged in a start-up called Cafe Counsel - an online platform that offers counseling and consistent support towards various mental and emotional health needs, that can be easily available in the most comforting spaces of one’s home or office. Being a for-profit venture he is curious enough to explore multiple forms of capitals, while also making the idea of Cafe Counsel more affordable for masses to make the project more sustainable and widely reachable. Deep contemplations and many conversations with like minded folks has brought him to explore this journey of Laddership circles.

Sheetal Vaidya:
Sheetal is one of the core anchors of the Pune MBL community and a long time volunteer of the ServiceSpace ecosystem. A Company Secretary (ACS) and a ‘Train the Trainer’ by profession, she has worked for companies like Suzlon Energy Ltd., The Fuller Life and organizations such as Akanksha Foundation and Youth4Jobs. Her professional experience and her journey of service in Gandhi Ashram, ESI and anchoring various MBL retreats led her to birth her own venture called Soham Learning Solutions. A life skills coach herself, Sheetal uses the platform of Soham to offer 'Transformative workspaces’ that focus on inner transformation at its core for any external manifestation. When she is not in workshops, she finds immense joy in traveling and doing various experiments of kindness while on road. Her recent journey on the road and a very intense 3 year personal journey has been a core anchor to ground herself in the values of Community, Connect and Compassion. Growing in personal journey and strengthening personal and collective practices is what brings her to this Laddership Circle.

Trishala Parmar:
With an academic background in Masters in Environmental Science, Trishala works as a safety, health, and an environment executive with a multinational firm in Baroda. With an intense commitment towards the path of inner inquiries she wishes to dedicate herself to serve humanity. She gets immense satisfaction when she is able to serve the employees of her company. That is something that gives her the utmost joy at her work place. Being a part of the Baroda community, she has been actively participating in volunteering for various projects locally. One of her key lessons that she has learnt through her volunteer experience is that we are all connected at a deeper level. Resolving inner conflicts through self-inquiry and bringing clarity on her path as she walks ahead, is what has brought her to this Laddership circle.

Volunteers:

Anjali Alpapat:
From Bangalore with an undergraduate degree in English literature and a master’s degree in Journalism, she is a full-time volunteer to KnowYourStar and is living a life of service. She is head of content and is committed to making all content of Know Your Star website accessible for people on the disability spectrum. With deep humility she describes herself as total South Indian when she shares that her father is from Kerala; mother is from Andhra Pradesh, is brought up in Tamilnadu and lives in Karnataka. She attempts to nurture deep connections with everyone around her and create affinities to hold each other. She’s an ardent feminist who believes in karma, equality, social activism, and a passionate supporter of gender equality & responsible journalism.

Atul Sahu:
After being in the corporate world over a decade at a lucrative job in South-East Asia, Atul moved to India to teach at a government school in Pune through the TFI fellowship. Very passionate about teaching and inculcating values in children, parents, and community, he says one of the turning points in his class was when he did 21 days kindness challenge with his grade 2 kids. His life of service is dedicated to bringing Education to the underprivileged communities. One of his long-term visions is to bring programs like TFI to 2-Tier cities and villages.

Pranita Bhatt:
She is the CEO – Chief Everything Officer :) – of KnowYourStar and is based in Bangalore, India. After quitting her job at IBM she found a calling at KYS which she started as a hobby weekend project with three friends in September 2012. In addition to ensuring the original inspirational content on almost daily basis, she anchors an educational outreach program called Mentor India with the help of volunteers, where spoken English classes using value based stories are taught in rural schools. She wants to make this world a better place and master the spirit of service, gratitude, and generosity. She also co-anchors Volunesia circles and is flipping the conventional paradigm of volunteering.

Parag Shah:
He gets lit up by infusing the spirit of giftivism in all elements of his life-- whether in launching a WisdomBook Store, galvanizing his IB school to pilot Karma Kitchen, bringing a Gandhian ethos into his diamond business, and holding space that ignites powerful ripples in his community. He's also an avid reader of Krishnamurti and lives in Surat, India with his wife and sons.