Networking for Social Change & Personal Development.
By Peter Adeeko, founder of Soulace Africa
The world we live in is entangled in a huge web. To think of untangling it is to create further chains of complexity. This fact is what explains my connection with Mayuri Joshi Dhavale, whom I popularly call as “Mayor”. In some parlance, Mayor could mean Governor or a noble, or honorable individual whose life and purpose can be emulated. And I associate this with her.
I ran into Mayuri in June 2019, just a few days after I followed Meghana, a 2019 Kanthari graduate on facebook. As a practice, I am on autopilot to connect with every kanthari since we have the same professional root. I do this almost spontaneously without any form of thinking twice on all platforms. What became more like a brother-sister relationship today started from Meghana’s Facebook post. Meghana shared her kanthari experience during one of those Acts in kanthari that got some interesting comments. One of them was from Mayuri and I decided to take the step to connect with her if not for anything but for cross cultural, intellectual exchange of some sort. Before I did that, I asked Meghana to introduce me and my work to Mayuri. Mayuri is a borderless soul in social change making and her influence has brought sustainable impact in her community in Pune. I saw empathy and genuine concern in the particular comment she made. Her post revealed her addiction to charity and need for better human livelihood. And there I saw a spark!
As changemakers we must constantly find our path through this chain of global complexity taking advantage of available tools such as the internet, social media etc. Right now, the world is a fusion of loosely knitted, but highly connected and borderless communities of humans.
The following day Mayuri contacted me through her messenger and asked me “How can I be of help to you?” There we go! Yes of course, I had taken my time to peruse her profile. So, from the very first discussion, I stopped being a stranger. I familiarized myself with her social change commitments and achievements. We later discovered that we were both from military parents. Her dad was a retired general with Indian air force. My father was a sergeant with Nigerian military intelligence. We had similar passions. We were both knowledgeable and I think with high emotional intelligence. I have immense respect for her. She often praised my work. I understood that getting someone like Mayuri to follow you or your work might require some level of rich content and genuine concern for change. Which I think she found with what I do with soulace Africa.
In the early days of January 2020, I shared a social media post on the need to initiate soulace skill development centers. And having seen this, Mayuri stepped up and made a commitment to contribute. I sent her a short proposal based on which she wrote my full story the way no one has written it till day.
It was like she had known me from birth. I am grateful that having someone who does not know you from Adam, who hasn’t met you, has taken the effort of referring to me as a friend and vouching for my personality and work. Let me give you a shock. I have not met both Meghana and Mayuri in person ever, except for a whatsapp video call for a few minutes.
I have greatly benefited from this spark of change. Mayuri has continued to introduce me to her contacts and network, some of whom have contributed to my work. She has given a generous donation of five sewing machines for our training. And she continued to mobilize the Indian community in Nigeria to buy into my work through their Corporate Social Responsibility programs. She has selflessly joined our editorial team, championing the production of the debut edition of our soulace magazine. She had planned to be visiting Nigeria as a guest instructor for our women in Enterprise development program. However, due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, this move was stalled. We look forward to welcoming her in the future.
At the wake of the dreadful Covid19 lockdown in India, Mayuri helped to mobilize an emergency food support for the son of one of our widows who is studying in a medical college in Pune. All it took was a chat with Mayuri, and she did the magic. She went out of her way to get food delivered to the widows’ son immediately. Only someone with a heart of gold could have done this during such a critical time. Mayuri did not just gave me a huge sense of purpose with this kindness she also a gave the helpless mother and his son a huge sigh of relief.
To cap it all, Mayuri Joshi Dhavale, has been co-opted to join Soulace Africa chain of Strategic Global Development Directors.
The million-dollar question remains, what if I would not have followed Meghana. What if I would not have read her post and Mayuri’s comment. What if I never had that chat that got Mayuri introduced to me. What if I would not have leveraged on technology. What if I would not have dismantled the barriers of communication in my mind? What if I were not intentional about my work and reach. What if?
As social change makers we must understand that we are global citizens. It is too late not to leverage technology. We must optimize opportunities provided by our seemingly little networks as it helps us to transform us and our work.