I enjoyed my time in Mumbai very much. The highlight for me was definitely the RSCJ tours of all their places of work within the campus of Sophia College: the College for Women, Polytechnic, Sophia Nursery school, and Sadhana School for children and youth with mental challenges. Makes me proud to be RSCJ to see how much empowerment work our Indian sisters are doing through education. I was invited to give a presentation to a group of young women taking a social work course at the women's college, on my work on Indigenous - Settler relations and human trafficking in Canada. Wonderful young women. We had a great discussion together.
The next day was India's 67th Independence Day, August 15. We celebrated with Mass, flag raising ceremony, and a peace march to the August Kranti Maidan from where the Quit India Movement was launched. This is where on August 8, 1942, Mahatma Gandhi gave the famous Quit India speech that began a movement of civil disobedience and called for the British to leave India. It was quite something for me to be part of this and to experience the wonderful sense of gratitude and national pride these young women of all difference backgrounds have for their country. In the afternoon, two RSCJ gave me a tour of south Mumbai.
Now I am in Hyderabad getting ready for the Women's Worlds 2014 Congress, which begins this evening.
The monument below is called, Gateway to India. It was erected in 1911 to welcome King George V and Queen Mary.
