March 2025 Newsletter

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Project RISHI is a nonprofit organization with the goal to promote sustainable development and growth of rural Indian communities. In partnership with local community members and NGOs in India we identify issues central to our target community and provide resources to implement solutions through extensive field research and on-campus initiatives. 

Hi everyone, we hope your spring quarter and midterms are going well! This is the second edition of our 2023-2024 newsletter, and we wanted to provide you with an additional recap of RISHI RISExCON.

On April 6, our Project RISHI chapter collaborated with USC and UCLA’s chapters to host RISHI RISExCON: Sustainable Futures. UCR Project RISHI was also in attendance. 

During the first portion of the conference, RISHI CON, all attending chapters had the opportunity to present their work and receive feedback from other chapters. Doing so allowed us the opportunity to gain unique perspectives and inspirations for us to implement and develop within our chapter, while also networking with other chapters. We then discussed possible scenarios centered around Project RISHI’s core values and situations, including cultural saviorism, contact fatigue, short term vs. long term goals, and NGO partnerships.

Moving onto the second portion of the conference, RISHI RISE, we had the privilege to listen to two guest speakers—Saliha Agha and Dr. Paula Tavrow—about their experiences in public health and regarding sustainable futures. 

Saliha Agha explained her takeaways from initiatives she has been involved in, mainly discussing community impact, small and actionable steps, and the usage of data to support missions. 

Dr. Paula Tavrow discussed her work in Kenya, which involved increasing youth access to sexual and reproductive health resources. From her work, she mentioned the importance of short term successes, but also the struggles with long-term sustainability. Our chapter found it particularly relevant, as we have often faced conflict in defining short term and long term projects in our efforts to create sustainable initiatives.

Thank you to our networking chairs, Aarushi and Khushi, for making this event possible, and all other Project RISHI chapters as well!