Training for Laboratory Support Team

The training session was conducted to engage the Lab attendees (17 of them) on personal ownership and mutual accountability as key elements in their roles, and as part of their personal and organizational leadership in their work at CHRIST. There is always a question of how do I trust?, and whom Do I trust?. The session helped the lab attenders process these questions; and the sessions were aimed at making the 17 participants discover different aspects of life; focused mainly on team-building aspects to create a community among themselves. The training session helped the participants to realize the importance of communication and allowed them to be mindful of each other within the larger team. They were able to identify the need to be intentional in working as a team - given their reality of not being able to find time to talk with one another. The session aimed at the Holistic development of the participants through group activities, personal times for reflections, group discussions and Q & A, to build them up so that they can take on more personal ownership; and to more mutually accountable with one another as part of personal initiative within the roles that they took on.

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Rabbi Jayakaran and Chitra Ramaswamy were resource persons for the event in the morning session.

Chitra Ramaswamy is a trained social worker with twenty years of experience in development work. She is passionate about justice, peace, and sustainable living. Her work experience includes social empowerment of women from marginalized communities, domestic violence issues, public health awareness, and community empowerment, teaching gender and social analysis; life skills curriculum development for the teens and women; writing and editing for a family magazine; being Health Improvement Practitioner with the NHS Gloucester (U.K.). She has worked in disaster management situations in Orisa and Gujarat (India). She is currently a teacher, trainer, and writer. She supports the work of the rehabilitation of prisoners, especially in the area of mental health and wellness. She is on the India Leadership Team of an international organization. Chitra sees mental health & wellness, conflict transformation & peacebuilding, and sustainable & culturally sensitive living as crucial to resolving global, local, inter-personal or eternal challenges, from her work for the past twenty years at a community level and inter-personal level.

Rabbi Jayakaran is a trained social worker with over twenty years of experience in community development work. He is passionate about justice, peace, and sustainable living. He completed his masters of social work from Roshini Nilaya, Mangalore, and Masters in Inter-cultural Studies from the University of Gloucestershire, UK. His work experience includes working with young people, women, and children directly; and in the areas of development support (Funding) and in alliance building, networking, and advocacy. He currently teaches an open elective with the dept. of Psychology at CHRIST and is doing his MPhil in Dynamics of Family with Family research and Training Institute. He gives leadership to an organization called Peacemakers that works on issues of justice, peace, and conflict transformation.

Samuel S George (Staff of PKCL) was the resource for the Post Lunch Session. He is an ordained minister and a counselor by profession, bringing with him over two decades of hands-on fieldwork experience of working in the NGO sector both in regular and leadership roles. He has worked in India and in the USA. He was the Aftercare Director for International Justice Mission, Bangalore office for seven before joining the Praveen Kenneth Leadership Chair at CHRIST (Deemed to be University). He works in administering the programs and activities of the chair. He has a master's degree in Sociology and a master's degree in Divinity. He covers the session on looking back to look ahead, to further build on the session conducted in the morning and to draw the 17 participants to a place of personal ownership and mutual accountability.

Not all of us can deal with change easily; each one of us has our strengths and weaknesses. This is why it becomes all the more important to value teams and team members because we create a support system for each other and guide each other through challenges. Communication is extremely important because it allows us to share our thoughts and feelings; we can not only talk about what worries us or what scares us. We can also talk about what makes us happy and what gives us satisfaction. It is through such conversations that one builds trust among themselves. Let’s have the vision to transform our lives, let’s aim to be better than we were yesterday, and let’s have a strong sense of personal responsibility which will guide us to achieve our goals. It is important to understand that many people care for us and pray for our well being and they are committed to supporting to great extents which includes leadership, the Vice-Chancellor, and others. What is needed is to is for us as employees to own our responsibilities in whatever we are doing in our current role and to not be stagnated with our thinking; but to challenge ourselves to take up personal ownership and be mutually accountable to each other and the organization. The session was aimed at driving this point by drawing the participants take on their responsibilities and hold each other accountable, respecting, and supporting each other; creating positivity, hope, courage, and happiness.