Shankar Rural Development Foundation

Motivational talks to discover their power within for success at different schools in India: By Roeland Martin

1 to 23 rd September 2008.

An Introduction based on a true story of his success in life:

When I was a teenager, I asked my friend what he thought we should become when we were grown up. “A problem solver”, was the reply. There is an enormous shortage of problem solvers in this world. Everyone has problems, our parents, our teachers, our friends, everyone…

“That’s fine”, I replied, “But where can we get a degree in problem solving? Which University has a course where we can learn this?”

We decided to ask our fiends and parents what their problems were and after a while we realised this was just too big a task. How, for instance, would we be able to find an answer to their problems? Some of them were just too large to handle. So we worked out that we could not solve the problems of other people, but if we could possible find a way of making people happy, their problems would either get much smaller of even disappear. It is the way of getting rid of the negativity.

How would we be able to make people happy? We decided to go about making them smile, which was not easy when their mind is on their problems. One day we were playing football, the opposition team scored a goal against us, which did not make us happy at all. We did notice that the boy scoring the goal, put his thumbs up in the air, shouted with joy and was very happy indeed.

A week later we went to the cricket and we watched the guy scoring a century, holding up his bat with the left hand and putting his thumb up with the right hand. We decided that this was the sign we had been looking for. We promised from then on that we would greet people with our thumbs up, we would put our thumbs up when we were leaving each other, we would put our thumbs in the air every time someone told us about a problem to let them know that we felt for them and that we hoped this sign would make the problem disappear. We would put our thumbs up first thing in the morning and at the same time we would think of our friends, knowing that they would do the same and think of us.

“Thumbs up club”- Join it and be a successful person: Now I’ve become known as the “thumbs up” man. If anyone wants to become my friend they have to join the “thumbs up” club. They have to practise putting their thumbs up, just like all of us members of the club. We have found that it works. By doing this, we become happy and because we are happy, everyone in our company becomes happy..

Happy people are successful people. All the power is within you. If you use this power and be happy, nothing can defeat you. Everything is possible in this situation. Do not let anyone tell you that you cannot do it.

Learn from “Bumble bee story”: Let me tell you the story of the bumblebee. According to all laws or aerodynamics and all laws of physics, the bumblebee cannot fly. Its wings are too small and the body is too heavy. And yet, it flies. Why is this so? Very simple, no one has been able to tell the bumblebee that it cannot fly. If it would be possible for us to tell the bumblebee that it is impossible, I am sure it would immediately stop flying.

Conclusion: So friends, take note of the lesson of the bumblebee. Do not allow anyone to tell you that what you want to do is impossible. Set your goals and go after them. Start to join the thumbs up club and share this story with your other friends. If you like contact Roeland for suggestions mail Id:roelandmartin@optusnet.com.au

Tags: PROJECTS by brant
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Roeland Martin: Profile

Roeland was born in 1941 in Magelang, Indonesia. His family was Dutch, but had lived in Indonesia for 5 generations. In 1942, the Japanese Army overran the Country and Roeland together with his brother and mother were interred in a concentration camp for the duration of the war. After the war, Roeland went to Primary school in Indonesia until the country became independent in 1948.

Shortly after that the family moved to the Netherlands where Roeland completed primary school and then went to the High school. He did not like the classrooms and the learning process and he was constantly playing football instead of attending classes and doing homework. Football was his passion and he became a very good football player.

At the age of 18, Roeland migrated to Australia, where he worked as a storeman for 8 months and then joined the Australian Army. In the Army he became a radio operator and as such he was most of his time traveling around Australia and New Guinea, wherever communications were required. Six years later he left the Army, he was a sergeant now, but he wanted to try his luck as a civilian. He had become interested in positive thinking, goal setting, public speaking, etc and he firmly believes that everything is possible, if you dream about it and if you want it strong enough.

This was his next passion and Roeland was determined to become a motivator and a teacher in this field. He spent all his free time learning the subjects and he spoke at as many functions where he could. He now travels to India every year where he speaks at both primary and secondary schools. In the mean time, he worked as a salesman with a large business equipment company in Australia and within 5 years he became the national sales manager and subsequently the general manager of that company.

He resigned in 1976 and started his own business as a retailer of health foods, a business he still runs today. He is also a successful share investor and he has been invited to speak on share trading many times for different organisations. He is heavily involved with the Queensland Investors’ club in Australia.

Roeland loves to go to India each year where he assists Dr Shankar Chamala in the good work being done by the SRDF. He speaks to every one who is interested in being motivated and he plays football with the children so that they get the maximum enjoyment whilst learning how to be successful.

Tags: PROJECTS by ljanardhanreddy
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VISIT OF AUSTRALIAN RURAL LEADERSHIP PROGRAM COURSE 14 PARTICIPANT TO CHILVER SRDF ON 06 SEPTEMBER 2008.

Rob Patick (Director-ARLP COURSE 14) and Karim with their 32 Rural Leaders selected from all over the country visited Chilver to see some of the activities under taken by SRDF. Dr. Chamala was asked to give a brief introduction about SRDF and the main framework of involving stockholders based on the Participatory Action Management (PAM) model.

Village Sarpanch (village elected leader) Mr. Raja Goud welcomed and give information regarding the village profile. As the course is about rural leadership, participants asked various questions as to how the village leadership is contested and his vision to develop Chilver.

They also wanted to know which of the leadership roles have given him high satisfaction and which other roles gave him dissatisfaction. Other local leaders like Mr.M. Narashima Reddy and P. Narshima Reddy has a good interaction on the role of leadership in rural development.

All participants visited community learning centre in chilver and seen some of the activities and met young women under going tailoring classes. They interacted with SRDF scholars and other village community. They walked through the village to get a feel of the rural condition of the India. They visited Government High School interacted students & Teachers. More importantly student played cricket with Australians, sang songs together and had good interaction. The Head master felt happy to note that student were conversing English confidently and happily with the visitors.

Dr and Mrs. Chamala felt happy to provide this opportunity for village community interact with Australians as it gives the students and the community leadership a chance learn about Australia and promote international understanding and peace.

Rob Patrick said: “From all of the participants of ARLP course 14, we would like to thank you for sharing the wonderful work you are doing through the Shanker Rural Development Foundation. It was a great pleasure to see the next generation of community leaders being given opportunities of gain education and skills that will shape their futures. We especially enjoyed the cricket and the singing. All the best in your endeavours!”. Some of the participants were interested in coming to work for SRDF. They also presented a couple of cricket bats, balls and a donation of $250.

Tags: PROJECTS by ljanardhanreddy
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