MPG on Sabbatical: Design Technology (DT)'s Darshan Patra followed his dreams of community service all the way to India

DT’s Darshan Patra spent his time on sabbatical making a difference in remote Indian communities.

Priyadarsan “Darshan” Patra is a researcher in Design Technology (DT)’s Strategic CAD labs.  An Intel employee since 1995, Darshan recently took his first sabbatical and used his time away from work to pursue one of his passions: helping the community.

Darshan’s sabbatical was a “dream come true” for him as it allowed him to plan an extended stay in India visiting with his “near and dear ones”, and also provided an opportunity for him to spend 20 days volunteering in some remote Indian villages. 

Darshan’s wife, Anu, and their two children, Ashish (12) and Adarsh (7), accompanied him to many of these villages, staying behind only when a town was difficult to get to (i.e., was only accessible by foot). 

“Many of the villages that we visited as volunteers are the sites of small-scale, grass-roots development projects undertaken by a US-based non-profit organization called Sustainable Economic and Educational Development Society (SEEDS) and the Australian branch of Association for India’s Development (AID),” said Darshan. “The main purpose of most of my time was to see these projects and move them forward to their next steps, and to inspire and be inspired by the villagers and the local NGO (non-governmental organizations) volunteers who execute the projects.”

Collaborating with a local professor, Darshan conducted a one-day seminar on “Sustainable Development for Self-Sufficiency” at a city hall in Bhubaneswar, India (photo below).  This event was attended by many NGO volunteers, students of social welfare, and intellectuals.

On June 30, Darshan and his family visited a fishermen’s village called Nolia Nua Gaon on the eastern seaboard of the Bay of Bengal (photos below).

“We watched as the fishermen went out to catch paltry fish in their rickety wooden boats and sell them on the beach,” said Darshan.  “There, we also participated in a meeting of the local Marine Fisherwomen’s Federation called “Samudram.”

The photo below shows small, marginally-affordable (though very cheap by American standards) hand tools developed at a technical institute near Bombay that were demonstrated to the village crafts-people.

“The point was to show the villagers how they could increase their productivity and demonstrate the quality of products made from bamboo (i.e., baskets, plates, etc), which the village craftspeople sell to earn their living,” said Darshan.

Darshan also visited a rebuilt elementary school in a scheduled caste village called “Bauri-sahi” (pictured below).  Darshan was asked to inaugurate the school and ended up making a speech in front of the many women and teachers of the area who showed up for the event.

“The school, which was razed to the ground three years ago during a ferocious cyclone,” Darshan said, “never received any government or public support for rebuilding until SEEDS came forward and acted upon a proposal sent to the United States.”

“I spoke for 20 minutes,” said Darshan.  “It was raining, and it was very humbling [for me] to see the adults and kids sitting quietly on the ground covered only by the mere and bare protection of leaky palm leaves thrown over a bamboo support.” 

On July 7, Darshan went to Baghamari village, under the Baghamari Panchayat area of southern Orissa, India.

“I was lucky enough to rent a 4-wheeler, which got me close to the first village,” he said, “and then I was able to walk the distances to visit the two tribal villages shown in the following pictures.”

“In the photos above, we are teaching the villagers how to buy two-weeks-old chicks from the government’s poultry department,” said Darshan.  “Then, as a community, the villagers can grow and care for the chicks, selling them at the market later as a means of generating sustenance income.”

Along the way, the village participants learned about health care, responsibility, savings, and children’s education.

“In the photo below, I am wearing the village’s “honor” hat and holding a bamboo stick as a gift of appreciation (to help me walk up the hills, back to where we have transportation),” said Darshan.

“The village was very hard to reach, even by a 4-wheeler,” Darshan said.  “We got stuck in the mud several times, and the kids were quite excited about it!”

 “In the village of Jhankarbahali, in the Sambalpur district (photos below), I planted several bamboo saplings in a field prepared by the village community,” Darshan said.  “We are hoping that these villagers will have a much-needed earning supplement by raising bamboo for two years or more and then selling the proceeds of their crop to a nearby town.”

 “To improve irrigation in some of the villages in the water-parched western districts, we helped build water-sheds and small earth dams or micro-irrigation facilities.”