Why India, why now

There is a question we ask in every community we enter. It is not “What do you need?” It is “What is already working here, and how can we help it work for more people?”

When the Courtney Jordan Foundation asked me to lead its newest branch, I did not begin with a strategy document. I began by listening: in school courtyards, at primary health centres, in self help group meetings. What I heard was not a story of helplessness. It was a story of effort that had not yet met its match in resources.

India does not need to be saved. It needs to be seen. The girl who walks three kilometres to a school that stops at Class VIII does not need our pity. She needs a bridge to Class IX. The mother who knows her child is undernourished but does not know where to go does not need a lecture. She needs someone who knows the way. The woman who has already built a customer base in her village does not need another certificate. She needs first capital.

The Courtney Jordan Foundation has always believed that the measure of giving is not what we provide, but what becomes possible. In India, what becomes possible is nothing less than the full participation of a generation. We are not here to build a monument. We are here to build bridges, and to stay until the bridges hold on their own.

That is why India, and why now. And it is why we will measure our success not by the number of programmes we launch, but by the number that no longer need us.