I write this from the house of Holy Cross Brothers in Dhaka. We are the guests of Brother Jarlath D’ Souza, a veteran in the field of interfaith dialogue. George and myself are on our way to India after the successful completion of our TPA training. Here the group was a senior batch of NGO reps and they said in one voice that this was a training with a difference. We are happy that they have enjoyed it very much. We had two guests at the valedictory session—Dr. Kazi Nurul Islam, Head of the Department of World Religions, Dhaka University and Madam Valerie A. Taylor (UK), founder of the Centre for Rehabilitation of the Paralysed. During one of our morning walks, we visited this Centre, which is rendering amazing service to hundreds of suffering people from all over Bangladesh. Madam Valerie was hearing about URI for the first time and she was so happy to know that URI has spread its wings over 80 countries in a short span of time. All participants received their certificates from these guests.
Only 50% of the participants were able to speak English fluently. We made effective use of Bengali translation. Anando Director Maniruzaman and Francis Halder could easily do this. One thing we learned from Bangla experience is that the language will not be a big problem for TPA trainers as there will emerge an easy method of communication as we proceed. Much of their sharing can be in the native language, which one of them can easily translate to us and all will be happy.
We are reassured of the fact that TPA can be a very potential instrument to raise the visibility of URI in different parts of the world. The seeds sown by JPL and Herm are flourishing in numerous countries and climates and we have to grateful to Libby and the Catalysts for Peace for making this possible.
