Silos to Synergy – The Start of a Salem Story

 We all must have heard this story in childhood, where four people who stay together and share common objectives accidentally get into differences and start quarrel, but they fortunately come to meet a sage. The sage gives each of them a stick and insists them to break it, they all break it easily. Further, the sage takes four sticks together and asks all of them to try breaking it, but they fail. They moral which remains is that being together and acting together makes us stronger and powerful.

This story would stand as a right metaphor for the fellows placed in Salem. Harini, Santhiya, Sowmya and myself who first met in Pune during the JSW Foundation Fellowship induction training in September 2023 found resonance in our vision to work for development. We all had different experiences and learnings previously, but the intention and vision was aligned. 

Each of us have been given different themes to work on during the course of fellowship. But the idea we envy is to not work in silos by working together in synergy so that we could complement each other. As the four sticks put together become stronger than one individual stick, four integrated interventions’ impact can create better change rather than isolated efforts. 

In fact, the idea of synergy, nexus, integration is not limited to Salem or any other particular location where fellows are placed, it’s for the entire cohort of 30 young and enthusiastic individuals who have come together in this endeavours intending to create change.

There is always many ways to look at a given situation, we 30 individuals in this second cohort of JSW Foundation Fellowship have diverse academic background, cultural experience, personal values and ideas, etc,. If we have to look at this differences as a barrier to collaboration or alignment, then it is definitely a barrier. But whereas if we look at this differences as an opportunity for interdisciplinary learning, cross cultural sharing, platform for introspection and reflection of our own ideas, etc, then this platform rightly offers that space. So what matters is where we look from and how we perceive.

I hope this idea stays fundamental to the entire cohort and unites all our efforts collectively into one common vision. We embark on this wonderful journey realising that learning is continuous process, so is collaboration and team work. Our paths may differ, methods may vary, tools may change, but the intention and the larger vision remains.