Sunday 9 December – Friday 14 December

After the Sisters at Holy Cross Convent made me look beautiful in the saree I got as a gift from the HMC sub-site, Srs. Deepa, Jyothi and Igna (from Chalice’s Madurai Site) and I headed over to the Good Shepherd Convent for the Regional Partners’ Meeting. It is in a different part of Bangalore – busier than Cooke Town where the Holy Cross Convent is. I was blown away by how peaceful it is inside the Convent walls. Later in the week I commented that I wish I could bottle the feeling and take it home with me. Sr. Regina (the Site Director) and Lavitha (her right hand woman) were there to greet us and it was amazing to finally meet them in person. Ambrose was quite shocked to see me in my saree. And I also finally met Ananth Kaliyaperumal and Uma Ganesh, who work in the Chalice India Liaison Office. It was like meeting old friends!

Mine and Uma's group,

After getting settled into my room – complete with a sitting room (quickly converted into an office / meeting area), double bed, dressing room and a full bathroom with a huge tub and a hot shower - I did some unpacking! Just knowing I would be in the same place for more than 2 nights was very nice. I spent the first evening getting settled and started to meet some of our other Site Directors. There were some familiar names and faces (from pictures only) and many new ones. The food was great all week (as it has been the whole time) and we had some special treats like biryani, ice cream and samosas! As I may have already mentioned, Indians take their tea breaks very seriously! Each morning and afternoon we had a half hour break with snacks and tea. As hard as we tried to corral everyone back in 15 mins, it was a lost cause! Despite this, the breaks were a great opportunity to get to know people and digest some of what we learned in the previous session.

The Good Shepherd Sisters - Ambrose and Ananth's group.

Our meetings began the next morning after everyone arrived. Sr. Deepa would join us the following day, as after dropping me off she went back to Holy Cross to help with Sr. Amabel’s funeral arrangements. Our partner from Bangladesh had some issues with visas and could not make it. And one Site Administrator couldn’t come due to a friend’s marriage. Otherwise every Site that we work with in India was represented. Altogether we were a group of nearly 40 (20 of whom were Good Shepherd Sisters – the directors of the Bangalore Site’s sub-units).

After introducing the agenda and some house rules we got right into the Annual Financial Planning Training. Ambrose and Ananth took the Good Shepherd Sisters in one group and Uma and I handled the rest. Our group was a mixture of different accounting practices – centralized, decentralized and Direct Family Funding. During the first 2 days we spent going through the forms together. Our purpose was twofold – to get the Site Directors (accountants and field workers) comfortable with the forms and to find errors for correction. These forms are very complex so as to make them as user friendly as possible.
And we had all levels of Excel users so it was a long (but very productive) 2 days. Uma and I had a great time working together and developed a great rapport with the members of our group. By the end of the second day it was almost like we had been working together for years! It was a really wonderful opportunity to participate in this training. I learned a great deal during the process.

One of our fun energizers!

On the third day I gave a presentation on Sponsorship Administration and it was really fun! I talked about sponsorship from a sponsor’s perspective and the perspective of a Sponsor Representative. Some of the highlights were being able to share the love that sponsors have for the children they sponsor and the discussion we had about phrases that mean different things to Indians and Canadians (i.e. inmates, ‘passed out’ and boys receiving dresses...)! Knowing there would be many Site-specific questions I encouraged the Site Directors to come meet with me in the evenings and during lunch breaks – many of them took me up on the offer and it was a great opportunity to get to know people on a more personal level. My “office” was rarely empty! If Uma and I weren’t working on compiling our report from the training, one Site Director or another was visiting.

Group work on Ethics.

That afternoon we held an Ethics workshop where we challenged the Site Directors to come up with Codes of Conduct at the Managerial and Staff levels that reflected Chalice’s five values of Faith, Compassion, Respect, Integrity and Commitment. The results were impressive and we established a Working Group that will take the group documents and develop a Regional document. The Site Directors will also be going back to their communities and doing this at the grassroots level to include beneficiaries and other stakeholders who were not present at the Partners’ Meeting. It was a very powerful experience and hearing the Site Director’s discuss Values and Ethics in the following days was so affirming.

Pius Mathew speaking about DFF at the Visa Site.

We also spent some time introducing Direct Family Funding to the Sites and had some of our partners who have adopted this model of sponsorship give some testimonies of how it is working in their Sites. Not to get into the many details, Direct Family Funding is a move away from Benefits Distribution. Some of our Sites will always work best with the more traditional model of benefits distribution (i.e. orphanages and schools) but many of our partners will be transitioning to a hybrid model in the coming years. Direct Family Funding is basically what it sounds like – the sponsorship funds are deposited directly to a family’s bank account. Through small community groups and with some basic financial training, the parents of the sponsored children are accountable to each other to use the funds in the way that’s best for their family. With the Sites we’ve already transitioned to this model with it is working very well and been a positive experience. Chalice is always looking for ways to move away from dependency and towards empowerment – this is just one of them.

Ananth surrounded by the GSS.

To wrap up the week we had another day of Financial Training and a session on Results Based Management Indicators (again by yours truly – though not near as fun and exciting as the Sponsorship Presentation!). The closing prayer of the week was truly a moving experience. Everyone was invited to share a verse from the Bible that gave them comfort and encouragement. After Fr. Sampson’s mass that morning it really touched me and affirmed how important this Meeting was for our partners. The spirituality, faith and trust that I felt is beyond words. Working for an organization where this part of me is nourished and challenged goes far beyond any pay cheque ever could.

Ambrose addressing the group.

Overall the experience of this week has been amazing; certainly in a different way than the previous week but valuable and memorable all the same. I’ll try to describe some of our partners, and at very least list them all. The Good Shepherd Sisters administrate the Bangalore Site. The name of the Site can be very misleading – the central office is in Bangalore but the sub-units (18 of them) are found in 6 states. They each have a different focus. The Sisters are all so amazing. I still don’t know all of their names but I think I had the opportunity to speak with each one individually over the course of the week. In north-east India we have 2 Sites – Assam and Imphal. Assam’s Site Director is Sr. Sheeba – a Holy Cross Sister. I talk more about her in the next post. Imphal’s Site Director is Fr. Dominic. He works with the Diocesan Social Service Society. The Site is working in 6 tribal villages in the foothills of Manipur. We had the opportunity to speak about some of the obstacles they face there. There are many tensions at play in this area – a strong military presence, physical separation from the Indian sub-continent, refugees from neighbouring Burma, conversion to Christianity, a transition from subsistence farming to more modern techniques, the introduction of money and western things, and the list goes on. Lily, the Site Administrator was unable to come as she was attending a wedding. I had really been looking forward to meeting her as this was a Site that started when I was a Sponsor Rep and I got to know her well through email. Fr. Dominic is an amazing person – so friendly and sincere. I am so happy to have met him. Going down the eastern coast we come to our Orissa Site. The head office is located in the city of Berhampur but there are sub-sites in West Bangal and Manipur as well as Orissa. Sr. Veronica and the Site accountant Prasanth were in attendance. Sr. is a sweet woman. She was a little bit scared of Excel but was ever eager to contribute to group discussion. Prasanth called me Sister all week... I gave up correcting him! He was very quick to pick up the Financial training and was really helpful in testing different things. Next is the Berhampur Site, directed by Fr. Paul. Fr. Suresh, a sub-site Director, also attended. I gave Fr. Paul a hard time during the training and he took it all in stride! He was very willing to test different things and took great care in filling everything out in its entirety (as opposed to copy and pasting like most others did to save time). Fr. Suresh was quiet but very sweet. Pius Mathew and Mr. Magesh (the Site accountant) came from the Visakhapatnam Site. Pius gave a presentation on DFF at his Site and Magesh was constantly snapping photos. This Site works in the slums of Visakhapatnam City. Pius’ brother, Binoy Mathew and Mr. Naga Babu (accountant) represented Coastal Site. Binoy greeted me every day and during the RBM session I picked on him as an example. The Coastal Site is also located in Visakhapatnam City and recently transitioned to DFF. From the Tamil Nadu Sponsor Site we had Fr. Sampson (a newer Site Director) and Kirthaka, the accountant. Fr. Sampson is a really kind person. I enjoyed getting to know him during the training. Kirthaka is a sweet woman. She and her husband have been trying to have a baby for several years with no luck. I told her I’d pray that they be blessed with a baby soon. The Tamil Site is also a new DFF Site. It is located in the state of Tamil and each of the six sub-sites is a different diocesan vicariate. Sr. Metty came from the newest Indian Site – Nellore. There are 2 sub-sites. One of them is working with children infected or affected by HIV. When Sr. Metty came to meet with me one evening she told me about the difficult work they do. Recently a single mother of 3 boys passed away from AIDS. The day that she passed she phoned Sr. Metty and made her promise that she would look after her sons. The boys are now staying in the hostel. She teared up when she told me, and of course I did too! Srs. Jyothi and Igna came from Madurai Site. This Site is in the state of Madurai. They are both Holy Cross Sisters and I got a chance to spend some extra time with them after the meetings at the Convent. Sr. Jyothi is small in stature but makes up for it in spirit! Sr. Igna does so much at the Site but when you ask her to speak she totally clams up! She is very quiet and spent the week taking everything in. From our smallest Site Janodayam Ms. Vinola and Mrs. Jeyajekshmi (field workers) attended. Vinola was always smiling and gave an exceptional presentation during the Ethics session. It was a joy to get to know her. And of course there was Sr. Deepa the Kerala Site Director and my personal guide during the first 10 days. If you want any more information about the partners with whom Chalice works in India, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me! (alishalebouthillier@chalice.ca)

The whole group! It took several tries to get everyone in but we succeeded!

The week ended far too quickly and before I knew it I was caught up in a whirlwind of goodbyes, invitations to visit and hugs. If you know how emotional I am, you’d be very surprised to know I totally held it together! I never once felt that this was the first and last time I’d be meeting these people and I know that this experience has only deepened the working relationship we have with each other. I left the Good Shepherd Convent with a deep sense of peace and accomplishment.