Sri Aurobindo Rural & Village Action & Movement (SARVAM), a rural development initiative of Sri Aurobindo Society, works for a progressive, empowered village community, which takes responsibility for bringing about a change in their lives. Recently, on August 28–29, 2017, as a part of their community leadership programme for women leaders and volunteers, SARVAM participated in a Leadership and Team Building Workshop at Pegasus Institute for Excellence, Puducherry. 
Building a good leadership team is essential for any organization. A successful leader is capable of providing confident people management and effective implementation of organizational practises, all while aiming to achieve community-wide developmental objectives and goals. Keeping these aims in mind, a team of 30 women, including several programme and project leaders and some volunteers from the new villages (which have just joined the SARVAM movement) were taken to this Workshop to provide them an opportunity to learn about direction, guidance, and motivation needed to excel in the areas assigned to them. Also, leaders need to have strong communication, time management, delegation and decision-making skills, and all these topics were a part of the Workshop.
Founded in 1997, Pegasus Institute for Excellence is an institute that trains people from all walks of life who are committed to transforming themselves and to assume leadership and management roles in professional and personal domains. With campuses present in Bengaluru, Pune, Bhubaneswar, Dehradun and Puducherry, one of their most renowned programmes encompasses Leadership Training and Team Building. With a belief that every organization/group/individual has inherent potential which can be evoked, unleashed for effectiveness, synergy and transformation, Pegasus offers training programmes to help individuals and organizations realize their full potential.
The SARVAM team participating in the Workshop were a mixed group; while most of the volunteers fell in the educated category, the leaders were mostly uneducated or educated only up to the middle school. In such a scenario, there was a challenge before the trainers to approach the training in a way that the sessions would benefit all the participants. They decided to use outdoor games and activities to encourage communication, problem solving and critical thinking, all the skills that are very important for Leadership Training and Team Building.
These targeted leadership and team-building activities proved to be very effective in building confidence and supporting the team’s growth and development, by providing situations where much-needed skills could be realized, developed, practised and enhanced. The outdoor games were followed by discussions to cement the lessons learned while playing the games. In all, the workshop was a great success in reinforcing the fundamentals of teamwork and leadership.