From the rooftop…

Govind Rathore and Shereen Arent at Sambhali Cafe in February 2025 

On my first day back in Jodhpur in February, I visited Sambhali Sarai. A year ago, it was an ambition to have a shelter for women and members of the LGBTQ+ community escaping gender-based violence and family rejection. Now I am standing on the roof of that shelter next to Sambhali Trust founder Govind Rathore with views of the majestic Mehrangarh Fort in the background and the pride flag waving above our heads. We are dining at Sambhali café on the roof of that building, a café openly run by members of the LGBTQ+ community.

The next day in Sambhali Trust’s office, a young woman proudly showed me her new government-issued transgender identification document that enables her to officially be who she has always been.

A few days later, I watched Sambhali U.S. board member Ellie Hamburger do a train-the-trainer session with teachers from Sambhali’s Empowerment Centers and Boarding Homes. The teachers will be presenting a series of health workshops on nutrition, immunization, child safety, diarrhea & dehydration, menstruation, and pregnancy & contraception as part of the new Saathi health program described here. I sat in the back and basked in the glow of being in the room with these magnificent teachers, half of whom began as students in Sambhali programs, all of whom overcame the odds to become educated women and leaders.

Two days later Ellie, Sambhali U.S. Vice President, Ginka Poole, and I saw Manju Solanki, an experienced Sambhali teacher, give a workshop on nutrition at the Abhaya Empowerment Center and heard the joy of learning in the enthusiastic voices of her students. Saraswati Mair, the new Sambhali nurse, was there meeting the women for the first time, and we saw acts of courage as women approached her to ask for help with health issues they had long believed must kept private. I saw access to healthcare expanding before my eyes.

Manju Solanki giving the first Sathi workshop

I know the struggle ahead is hard for the marginalized women, girls and members of the LGBTQ+ community in Sambhali’s programs. I know that flying the pride flag in Jodhpur is a very brave act. I know it is an on-going struggle for girls here to get an education. And I know it is frightening to trust someone with health questions when you’ve always been treated as unworthy by the health system.

But I also know what Sambhali Trust is doing is making an impact every day. The flag, the transgender card, increasing access to health care all show me that, as Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

That reminder is especially needed right now when on the home front the arc seems to grow longer every day. In these dark times, perhaps we are connected in new ways, better able to understand and empathize across the many miles from the U.S. to Rajasthan, India. That you stand with Sambhali now, even as you fight the good fight at home, is a testament to who you are and to the world we will help create.

I have never been more grateful for this community.

Shereen