Karmayoga

Karmayoga Exam

1. Answer:

We started our Karma Yoga journey to Ammanampakkam village very positively with the only aim of making a difference to the lives of less fortunate. In line with our Prime minister’s Swatch Bharat mission we arranged a Cleanliness and hygiene awareness camp in the Village school premises.

Our idea was to make the children aware on how cleanliness and keeping the surroundings clean was paramount in our daily lives. On 19th June 2016 with a group of 9 people we conducted this cleanliness drive. In the school grounds we gathered a bunch of 30 kids in the age group of 5-13 and explained them the importance of cleanliness. We taught them keeping our nails clean and tidy, taking bath regularly and strongly recommended them to use soap after soiling hands and using the toilet. We also distributed Hamam soaps and cut children’s nails that made them smile and also learned the importance of being tidy.

Village children are the torchbearers of their villages or simply put they are the ray of hope for their village. It was immensely important to impact these children with the school of thought of cleanliness and Swatch Bharat. Since Villages are much manageable in terms of disposing the garbage and keeping the surroundings clean, it is imperative that Village children learn these facts and help their village in keeping nice and clean. In the long run the villagers will definitely benefit from keeping their villages clean. This would bring in some investments to the village in terms of factories and in turn benefit the village people holistically.

The true leader must submerge himself in the fountain of people – Pg. no 119

True to the above quote we exactly did the same by continuously understanding people from their shoes. We ardently followed the situational leadership in our approach. There was a societal culture that was existing in Ammanampakkam Village that was predominant and centrally connected the villagers apart from what they did to earn their livelihoods. The cleanliness drive that we conducted will work like a chain reaction where in the youngest of the families be its ambassadors and lead the change.

The entire KY experienced has brought in transformational leadership in us. This change has helped us grow to our potential as well as significantly impact the lives of our assigned village. Some of the leanings that we got from this transformational leadership are:

• As a leader it is more important to know your followers ambitions and dreams before preaching. When we first some group of villagers we only asked them questions about themselves and tried to know them better.

• Displaying passion is single most essence in leading the change. We were all highly energetic and steadfast during our KY visit which left a good impression on the villagers and in turn they were able to keep more faith in whatever we said and believed.
• Learning from your followers. Every time we interacted with the fellow villagers, it enriched our learning and experience in terms of understanding ground realities. I am sure that this attribute will help us well when we go back to our corporate life.
• Dealing with challenges. Leaders’ inborn trait is handling challenges. We did not know the local language (Tamil) which people widely conversed in the village. Despite this hurdle it did not stop us from reaching every household and interacting with them on their problems
• Empathizing.  One of the most underrated yet most powerful nuance of leadership is empathizing and not sympathizing.

1. Answer:

The three important takeaways from out KY journey were:

1. Listening first. This is nothing but empathizing. We always tend to preach what we know and we display our preoccupied thoughts on everything we come across. We made sure that we first learned the requirements of villagers firsthand and then tailor made our solutions to suit them.
2. Be one among them. When we first entered the village it was very difficult to convince the villagers because we were completely different from them. Both of our life styles had a big gap. We tried to stick to the Great lakes T-shirt and made them aware that we are here not to display our superiority but to help them.
3. Lasting impact. We made sure that whatever we planned for them had a significant value add in their later life. We carefully chose what to and what not to conduct. E targeted the children as our trigger points to lead the change.

1. Answer: The three important questions that comes to my mind across socio economic and political areas are

1. How can we as a society work in a grassroots level in villages to ensure literacy and employment. The employment should be sustainable and should not involve them to migrate to urban centers?
2. How can archaic practices like Untouchability, Income, class strata and caste system from the villages be alleviated and improved in the betterment of village economy and culture?
3. How can village infrastructure be developed to stop rural migration to urban areas. What can be made to provide employment to rural workforce that will help them be self-sufficient self-reliant?