The Rotary Peace Center at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok Thailand has been my home for the past 3 months. The learning has been useful, the experience has been life changing. It is with a deep sense of gratitude that I make this final report because if it were not for the foresight and generosity of Rotarians around the world, I would never have benefitted from this life altering experience. I say life altering because when I first entered the course, I entered it un aware of how deeply it would impact me and how humbling the experience would be. The sheer exchange between twenty peace fellows during class with their collective life experiences on the table it self was mind boggling.
[https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151573018142283&type=1&l=334c1e9dbc]. Since they say a picture speaks a thousand words, here is the link to my photo album recording my 3 months at Bangkok.
Your impressions of the academic and fieldwork activities and progress:
The theme underlying the six days trip to Cheng Rai and Chiang Mai was “Human Trafficking and child abuse”. I guess one of the predominant reasons why the stories of child abuse, prostitution, human rights violations to persons being trafficked and used for domestic slavery or in fishing industry did not disturb me as much is probably because I tried to explain this phenomena using the principles/laws of “Cause and Effect”. It was during the visit to the Chom Mai Networks – the urban poor who served society through menial labour; that it struck me that even the poor of the poorest (economically) are prosperous in the values of equality, transparancy and self less service and if we were to sustain and strengthen these values then life would become more meaningful.
The theme surrounding the 8 days visit to Phnom Penh, Battambang and Siem Reap was to observe state building after a country has been ravaged by genocide barely 3 decades ago as well as to see the different aspects of tourism as a peace building mechanism. After visiting the Choeng Ek Genocide Memorial and the killing field near Phnom Penh, the question arose whether it is appropriate to memorialize a genocide by display of skeleton un earthed from the site. Tong Lee the 23 year old left a lasting impression on me because he has the ginormous burden of carrying forward the FEDA legacy almost single handedly. Whilst sharing with me the weight of that burden I felt very deeply for that boy not yet a man, who is giving his entire life so that other children and society in Battambang would become economically empowered through local and youth initiative. Photographs of this Field visit are available on the following link:
[https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?et=a.10151551107062283.1073741831.597662282&type=1&l=ca0f9ee8b9].
Information about your involvement with Rotarians in your host area:
Ms Suthasine my host counselor was not only gracious and welcoming toward me but also went out of her way to be inclusive toward the entire class 15 batch and it was a pleasure to invite all Peace Fellows to the outings organized by Suthasine. We went to Ayutthaya over a week end, as also to Pattaya and to Kanchanaburi and the Erawan Falls. Suthasine left no stone unturned to ensure warm hospitality for the Peace Fellows. Rotarians Suthasine, Sukanya and Suchitra organized a wonderful farewell party for all the peace fellows in the last month of our stay and we enjoyed a lovely dinner and karaoke singing at Suthasine’s place. Rotarian Sukanya organized an entire day in the country side showing us where she grew up and on several occasions made available for use her private car and driver which led to comfort travel for us. Rotarian Suchitra spent an entire day with me taking me to the Museum and Art Gallery and shared her life stories with me which made the experience of being in Bangkok very enriching. All I can say is that after knowing the host counselors who allowed us into a part of their lives has made the learning and living experience truly memorable.
Your impressions of the program as a whole:
The programme has been well conceived and put together. It is obvious that tremendous thought has gone into its execution and after speaking with some alumnus it becomes apparent there is a constant endeavor to keep upgrading the learning experience by being responsive to feed back. The staff were especially caring and kind and under the stewardship of Jenn the entire experience was flaw less.
A description of your successes and challenges as a Rotary Peace Fellow:
Include any Rotary functions or conferences you have attended; volunteer activities you have participated in; presentations you have given, indicating the date, location, event, and topic; and publications in which you have been featured since the beginning of the program:
In the third week of June, I offered to expose the Peace Fellows to a session on Anapana meditation as taught by S. N. Goenka. This was part of a voluntary activity I shared with the Peace Fellows. Around 8 of us sat and practiced the meditation that Sunday. Subsequently, a few other Peace Fellows requested me to conduct personal sessions which I was happy to do on a couple of other occasions for them/their spouses who were in town.
In the last week of June I was invited to the installation dinner of the Rotary club of Bangkapi which I was happy to attend and observe the proceedings of the evening.
Around the 22nd of August, 2013, I accompanied my peace fellow friend Ms Sangeeta Kakoty and her host counselor Ms Suporn to the Rotary club of Bangkorlaem where Ms Kakoty gave a presentation to the club.
On Tue 27th August,2013 I was invited to speak to the Rotary Club of Bangkapi and I exchanged club banners with the Host club as well as the Rotary club of Pattaya.
My learnings from the three months stay in Thailand:
Personal growth:
Watching and inter acting with the Rotarians, I have come to keenly understand the value of collaborations with like minded persons. Spending time and sharing space with 19 Peace Fellows from different cultures over a period of three months has created in me a greater openness and willingness to be exposed to different experiences. This has also reduced in me the tendency to be judgmental. I have come to a realization about my own lack of self esteem and also how to over come that. Understanding the sheltering received in the past as having hampered my growth as an individual. Living alone in Bangkok has made me come closer to realizing myself as a whole/complete person. By moving at my own pace, without being too hasty or wasting effort doing several things at once, I have understood how to consolidate my gains and reinforce my position. Since the past three months, iam better acquainted with myself – having self control – over my emotions - more self assured – self contained.
An overall evaluation of the program, recommendations for future fellows, and your post-fellowship career plans:
Today my thoughts are flooded with what I can do to contribute in the peace building arena so that the learning is put to good use.
The contribution will be at least three fold to my mind.
1. If the Judiciary at Mumbai is trained in the diagnostic method, they would be empowered to discern which matters are amenable to mediations. Thus being able to funnel the appropriate cases to a mediation bar which is already in the process of being established. Undoubtedly this would result in an alleviation of the current back log in the system and the problem of delays and laches would have a modicum of a solution resulting in overall peace building initiative for the people of this city. Having been taught mediation, negotiations by a world class faculty, connected with them and discussed this possibility with the concerned faculty, it would be relatively simple to execute this form of a training for the judges at Mumbai;
2. Forming a training curriculum on Conflict Resolution and Peace building for the Law Students at the Government Law College, a 175 year old institution at Mumbai. Perhaps modifying this programme to cater to the needs of others e.g. the Police;
3. Since my personal passion is child rights and protecting these, I intend to explore how my training as a lawyer can be utilized to offer services for NGO’s or the Unicef. I would need to analyze and identify the gaps in the system and understand how these gaps can be bridged. I had occasion to visit the Unicef in Bangkok and was extremely inspired to see the work they were engaged in at the policy level in this field.
4. Since the past month on returning home from Chulalongkorn, a)I was invited to speak to 8 year old children in an IB school in Mumbai. I had an interactive session with forty children incorporating the causes of conflict with them using the “conflict tree” diagram and values of peace building; b)spent four days with Faculty Irene Santiago who visited Mumbai and c)created with past alumnus from Mumbai a four days work shop structure [to be executed in Mumbai over two week ends this October] and will be engaging a day of training in Mediations at this work shop on Saturday 26th October, 2013.
5. On my return to Mumbai I have also enrolled in a course on Personal Counselling, teaching the Robert Carkhuff method since I intend to practice in the field of Mediations and Counselling. Iam hoping to study an M. A. in Psychology if time and finances permit, so that my contributions may be more well rounded and meaningful.