Raising a Heartivist Generation: Atop a Giant’s Shoulder
Penn Global Seminar: Compassionate Leadership: “The Power of Love, Service, and Inner Work”: Experiencing the Life of Mahatma Gandhi and other Compassion-based Leaders
Mariama, one of the Fall 2025 Penn Global Seminar Correspondents, shares her experience abroad during the Winter Break. Follow along with the group of correspondents on our blog and look out for their images on the @pennabroad Instagram feed.
Caption 1: PGS India seated at the statue of Mahatma Gandhi inside the garden of the Gandhi Ashram
When this Penn Global Seminar was first introduced, it immediately caught my attention because of its focus on internal growth and external service. This course consistently prompted us to reflect on our own daily practices, our aspirations for the world, and the seeds we were planting to help position that vision in reality. While I was ecstatic about the opportunity to travel to India, the course’s foundation being about connection rather than competition truly captivated me the most. Most of what I knew about Gandhi I learned from my father, and because of him I long imagined India as a place of great history, deep faith, and family. I wanted more than anything for this experience to challenge how I understand leadership, and help me see this world in a different light.
Through this PGS Course, I’ve come to appreciate Gandhi’s approaches to protest as necessary community-wide efforts that require collaboration and genuine solidarity. Trailblazers like Ghandi and Grace Lee Boggs led their lives dedicated to a continuous commitment to others and lifelong service. However, this seminar was about more than just learning histories of resistance, but about embodying the Gandhi Ashram principles in real ways. In practicing compassionate leadership in our own journeys we committed ourselves to identifying needs within communities in Philadelphia, building trust with people who may be unfamiliar with us, and engaging with committed organizations to address real challenges faced by real people we care about. The lessons we brought back with us through those experiences made for a heart-warming share every Thursday evening. Hearing stories of professors who have dedicated their lives to Teach for India and Manav Sadhna made me feel like our service here in Philly was also adding value to the world. Most of all, this course’s teachings fueled my passion to serve, and opened my eyes to the many ways in which that is possible. I knew that the service we were practicing was meaningful because it was guided by people who have already walked in a path of selfless offering.
As we prepare for the next ten days, my suitcase is left with a small empty space, in hopes of bringing back core memories and remnants of our trip back with me to the States. Our professors have asked us to table any expectations for the trip, and go into this experience with open minds and open hearts, ready to listen, offer, and document the invaluable moments and ideas that we will inevitably share together. In the words of Nimesh Patel, we are planting seeds, nothing more. When I daydream about this trip, I find myself wondering about the incredible landmarks we’ll come across, meeting the bright young students at Manav Sadhna, and understanding service and leadership through their eyes. I wonder most about what stories the 5th and 6th grade students will share, and what dreams they are carrying in their hearts and minds.
This course is very unique in its focus on self-improvement and service as its core functions. The values of this course being leadership, service, selflessness, and commitment are embodied by the course’s leaders: Patel, Howard, Gaines, and Lee, and that reality of being guided by incredible teachers makes me confident that this will be an experience of a lifetime. I am looking forward to seeing Ahmedabad not just as a tourist destination, but as a city full of incredible leaders and even better stories. I have explored the history of the vibrant paintings across the city, the impressive architecture that makes up the temples, mosques, and rock wells, and learned of the strong spirit of community that the Gujarati people live by. I cannot wait to see how those teachings come to fruition once we land in Gujarat, India.