08/13/2026
I knew I wanted to come to Sangam before I knew I wanted to become a Tare. But now that I have finished my 6-week Community Programme, it feels like the most fitting way I could have got involved with WAGGGS. I was paired with the Green Tara Foundation Pune, a women's empowerment organisation, and spent my days at one of their safe spaces, where neighbourhood children come to play and feel secure.
Despite my years of experience working with kids, I felt like an intruder in a space that wasn't mine at first. That changed slowly: mornings were spent helping with admin work and afternoons were spent getting to know the children.
One moment shifted everything. I met a staff member who had grown up coming to that very safe space as a child and who remembered Sangam Tares visiting years before. When I asked her what she thought the kids needed most from us, she said, 'Just share your confidence.' I hadn't realised that simply being present was the cultural exchange.
Over the weeks of playing games, running sessions and simply showing up, my fellow Tare and I built real, lasting bonds with the children. I hope I left something behind for the children I got to know, but I know without a doubt that they changed me.
I knew I wanted to come to India before I knew I wanted to come to Sangam. My dad's side of the family is South Indian, but I grew up dividing my time between India and the US. In the States, I was often seen as Indian, whereas in India, I was seen as American. I never quite picked up a single set of traditions I could call “my country”. Coming to India was, in a way, about trying to connect with a culture.
What I found instead surprised me. There is no such thing as a single 'Indian' culture, and I didn't need to be Indian to be in India. Living alongside guides from all over the world at Sangam, I realised that I didn't need one set of customs to belong. We could be from different places and simply be together.
It was the idea of Sangam — "coming together" — that carried me into the my time at Sangam.
