Newsletter-cum-magazine of Oasis Movement   Year 10 /  Issue 06 /  February 8, 2017
Oasis Movement Core Community
Young Generation On Cycle Tour
Cycle Tour Begins from Friendship Home, Vadodara
11 friends of Oasis Movement Core Community - Generation Y set out in the afternoon of January 9, 2017.(Photo above, from left to right) Viral Panchal, Reema Maisuriya, Pratiksinh Parmar, Avani Kulkarni, Binit Shah, Hiral Patel, Vatsala Shah, Hasmita Parmar, Praksha Desai, Shabana Ansari and Aatmaja Soni took up the challenge of visiting 10-12 villages in Vadodara District and travelling a distance of 130 kms with bare minimum essentials, without money and with hearts full of love!
The purpose of the cycle tour was 'Giving with Love' and 'Building Trust'. It was a Community Strength Building Tour which put the team in tough situations where the team learned 'If You Don't Mind, It Doesn't Matter'.
The tour ended at Oasis Valleys on January 12, 2017.
Sessions of Life-Values in Schools

In the afternoon, the team would conduct sessions based on important life values for government school children, along with one team gathering parents and conducting a session for them.
Community Sessions on Love and Gratitude in Villages
In the evening, the team members would organize and conduct sessions on love and gratitude for the citizens of the village they were to stay in. The citizens were so enthusiastic and eager to learn that they would change their routine and come for the sessions despite the cold weather. 
"I often hear people say this about the world “આ તો કળિયુગ છે! આજ કાલ લોકો પોતપોતાનું જ જુએ, આપણી બાજુ કોઈ ભાળવા પણ ના આવે, કોઈ કોઈનું કંઈ કરી નથી આપતું.” Our experiment of the Spiritual Tour to villages of Gujarat on bicycles with one pair of on-body clothes and one extra T-shirt in bag, zero money and no food, was eye-opening. We went on this tour with 4 major objectives:

1. Team Building
2. Testing and crossing physical, spiritual, emotional and mental limits.
3. To see if what people believe about the world is right or not.
4. Giving people the best we have – love with all our heart and best of our capacity."
- Hiral Patel
Tough Times Never Last, Tough People Do

Breaking the stereotypes, Hasmita and Reema, two young girls of the group, took training for fixing puncture and repaired 5 punctures during the trip. At one point, we fixed puncture without water.
If a cycle broke down, everyone took turns to ride it until we could find a place to repair it. This also helped us to understand the freedom from being attached to one's own things. It was a community where all the members shared the common daily essentials.
"જયારે ઓછી વસ્તુઓથી ચલાવવાનું હોય પણ એમાં ખુશીથી કઈ રીતે રહેવું એ સાહેબપુરાના લોકો પાસેથી શીખ્યા."

"પહેલી વાર દાતણ કર્યું."

"જયારે અમે ગામમાંથી જવા માટે નીકળતા ત્યારે અમે ત્યાંના લોકોની આંખમાં સ્નેહભર્યાં આંસુ જોતા."
"There was a time when we were late and had to cover the cycle route in dark. Night riding was very difficult as we could hardly see the road. This made us ride in one single line. We had only 2 torches, one with the first person and second with the last person. The messages about the terrain of the road were relayed and it was as if riding the cycle blindfolded. During this part, all that I could think was 'Trust the Path. Tough Roads build Skillful Riders.' - Avani Kulkarni

Team building is best learnt when the team is in crisis. Creative ideas popped up in everyone's minds when the team ran out of resources.

"એક જ શરીરના ૧૧ ભાગ. એક પણ ભાગને તકલીફ થાય તો બીજા ભાગ એને મેહસૂસ કરી શકે." - પ્રક્ષા દેસાઈ


(Photo left)
Solitude time for diary writing on the roadside
Families Who Took Us In
(Photo left) With family on first night halt at Por
(Photo above) With Sarpanch at Malpur
With the family of third night halt at Sahebpura
"In India, nobody will die of hunger", shared the people of Sahebpura – a small village where most of them do farming or small jobs. They said, "In the morning, if someone gets late at home and could not bring lunch to the fields, others would invite him/her for the meal." In the evening, after reaching home, even if there is less food, they can easily ask their neighbors for more. The sarpanch said, "Any family can survive for a month without money. They need not go to ask for food." People take the initiative to give with love and concern. Neighbors/villagers help by lending money, even for treatment of illness.
Cycle Tour Ends at Oasis Valleys, Chanod
હું તો નદી થઈને દોડું,
જે જે તરસ્યા હોય તે આવો...
હું તો વાદળ થઈને વરસું,
જેને ભીંજાવું હોય તે આવો....
હું તો પર્વત અડગ અનોખી,
મારી શક્તિ પારખવા આવો....
હું તો વૃક્ષની છાયા એવી,
જે જે થાક્યા તે આવો ....
હું તો રવિ બનીને સળગું,
આજ અંધકારને મિટાવું,
હું તો ધરતી એવી અનોખી,
જે જે એકલાં હોય તે આવો...
હું તો પ્રેમ શાંતિનો સમંદર,
જીવન નાવ લઈને ઝંપલાવો,
હું તો ખળખળ હસતું ઝરણું,
જે જે ઉદાસ હોય તે આવો...
- હસ્મિતા પરમાર
Team Alive
• Alkesh Raval  • Avani Kulkarni  
• Hiral Patel  • Kshama Kataria   
• Mayuri Gohil  • Mehul Panchal  • Sanjiv Shah
 • Sheeba Nair  • Vatsala Shah
Alive Archive

View Archive

Subscribe
You receive this newsletter because you may be one of the participants of oasis activities, or may have been referred by our core friends or you may have given your email address to us. Please feel free to share this newsletter with your friends, family and co-workers. You have permission to use this content in your newsletter or email system as long as you do not edit the content and you leave the links and this resource box intact. We will be happy to receive the copy of the same. 
If you wish that this newsletter is dispatched directly to your contacts, you may recommend the same to us along with their key details.