All children deserve a quality education. Together, we can help them reach their dreams.
Learn more about Teach for Life, the educational branch of Trees for Life.
“And Sophie, would you like to share what you gathered from your experience here at Trees for Life with everyone?” Balbir asked me as we were sitting around the lunch table.
I was facing an audience of about twenty people, my heart did not skip a beat when I was called upon to share.
The absence of my nervousness can be attributed to the way in which the people of Trees for Life had welcomed me into their community and made me feel at home. Trees for Life holds what many other organizations lack: a true sense of community.
"And Sophie, would you like to share what you gathered from your experience here at Trees for Life with everyone?" Balbir asked me as we were sitting around the lunch table.
I was facing an audience of about twenty people, my heart did not skip a beat when I was called upon to share.
The absence of my nervousness can be attributed to the way in which the people of Trees for Life had welcomed me into their community and made me feel at home. Trees for Life holds what many other organizations lack: a true sense of community.
A Movement
Trees for Life is a non-profit organization that empowers the people of developing countries through education and the spread of knowledge.
However, as Balbir Mathur, the founder and president, says, Trees for Life can best be described "as a movement, not an organization." Its main path is teaching people to plant fruit-bearing trees (such as coconut, papaya, and drumstick trees) to fight malnutrition. Their philosophy is that if you give someone an apple, you feed him for a day, but if you teach him how to grow his own apples, you feed him for a lifetime.
The people power the spread of this knowledge. After they educate a person and teach him how to plant the tree, the person must then teach two others what they learned, and those people teach two others, and so on and so forth.
A Day in the Life of Trees for Life
A day at Trees for Life starts out between 8 and 8:30 a.m. with everyone meeting in the Quiet Room. This is a room designated for quiet meditation and reflection. At 8:30 everyone joins hands and recites or sings one of two prayers or songs. After this everyone hugs and greets each other and sits down for morning meeting. Morning meeting is led by a different person every day and is intended to ensure that everyone is on the same page and knows what is going on during the day/week. Everyone takes turns and tells the others what they are working on for the day. When the meeting is over, everyone goes to work.
At noon everyone meets in the lunchroom to eat lunch, which is prepared by a different cooking team every day. The food is vegetarian and relatively simple. Balbir said that the reason for this is to put more emphasis on conversation and bonding with your neighbor than on the meal itself.
Usually there will be guests that come to eat with the Trees for Life community. Each guest is introduced and then everyone goes around the table and says a little about himself. The guest then goes into further detail about what he does and what he is about. Usually guests are asked to give their first impression of the Trees for Life community. They almost always say that they feel right at home!
The ritual that I found most interesting and very symbolic of what Trees for Life is really all about was the "after-meal clean up." Everyone grabs a spot in the dishwashing line, whether it be washing, rinsing, or drying. (There are always a lot of dryers!) Everyone has a different spot each time; there are no "designated washers."
This represents the structure of the business-side of Trees for Life. Although there are official titles such as president and executive director, everyone does everything and contributes to the whole in any way possible. When asked to revise a paper, no one says, "That's the editor's job!" This is yet another way in which Trees for Life is different from many other organizations: everyone works together to reach a goal.
After cleanup everyone goes back to work until five o'clock, although some people stay and work late.
The Trees for Life Community
One great thing about Trees for Life is that everyone who works there loves and cares about what they are doing. The volunteers of Trees for Life make about sixty dollars a month, so it is not the money that keeps them hard at work.
The city community of Wichita also contributes to Trees for Life. Just about everything in the building has been donated: the computers, the air-conditioners, the copy machines, and even the lawn service. The garden out back not only gives the Tree Housers a few vegetables, but also provides a place for troubled kids to do something productive with their time. Trees for Life gives back to the community.
During my short time at Trees for Life I did various tasks about the office: putting together volunteer folders and letters, making labels, testing some new software, writing cards, etc. Although I learned about office work, the most valuable lesson I learned was the power of a community, how a group of people who come together and equally contribute to a greater good can accomplish anything they set their mind to.
Having only stayed for five days, I know I am just cracking the surface of a much deeper knowledge. I hope to go back to Trees for Life and stay for a longer time so that I may not only learn more about community and what Trees for Life is about, but also that I may give back to the movement and contribute my individual share to the whole.
