Samuel Benoit

The third and last stop of my personal pilgrimage through Panchgani was to my parent’s workplace and the buildings my father helped to build when we were there.  In the summer of 1996, an old friend, Sherif Rushdy saw that my father was inbetween project management jobs and asked him to bring us over to India to help with the construction marathon that the New Era Development Institute (NEDI) was entering. 

It was wonderful to be there, to connect with my father through one of the projects he is the most proud of in his entire career, but has never been able to visit because it is on the other side of the planet.  It was also fun to meet the current students and be able to point to these enduring structures and tell them about my dad.  

The Baha’i-inspired social and economic development project was started in 1987 as an outgrowth of the very established New Era High School.  It’s name was recently changed to the New Era Teacher Training Centre (NETTC) to reflect its current focus on providing a degree programs on education in schools across India.  I was there during the Diwali break, but I did get to spend time with an incredible group of international students attending an intensive course on community development.  Some more  old and new pictures from the NETTC campus are now available on my flickr site.