Of Mandalas and Mustard Seeds

Is Japan a deadzone for social activism? Is the only “good fight” ever fought for a seat on the express train? Maura Hurley doesn't think so. From her Nara neighbourhood to the streets of Kolkata, this New York native is making changes.

Maura Hurley describes her activist interests as “pretty scattered”; bemoans that “some people can be really direct, but not me”. She sees her restlessness as a downfall.
She's transformed this impulsive nature, though, into a helping power. It's helped her hook into several causes, including the environment, third world development, and the anti-war effort. It's helped her build relationships in both her community and around the globe. Basically, it's helped her help the world.
“I jump around a lot because I get interested in so many different issues as they're all connected,” she says of her buckshot philanthropy. “Everything is linked up.”
She likens causes to mandalas, the cosmic maps from Eastern philosophy. Like the charts' overlapping spheres and patterns, Hurley sees the issues she's been involved in (volunteering at veterans' hospitals in high school, babysitting for job-seeking mothers in university, four years as foreign director at Japan Environmental Exchange, almost five in anti-plutonium group Green Action, organizing weekly vigils as America prepared to bomb Iraq) are connected — not only to each other, but to her long-held raison d'etre: “Being able to say you helped someone else feels good to me.”
She's managed to bind her varying interests with World Talk, a biweekly English discussion salon she hosts in Nara. Though dedicated to global topics, from Quebec protests to Bhutanese refugees, the idea grew from simple roots.
“I was kind of sick of talking to other mothers about kids and obentos”, laughs Hurley, a mother of two, “and I know from living in Japan and doing activist work that there's great people out there that are also sitting in their houses and want to talk about things.”
Most of her current activities fall under the banner of Mustard Seeds, the project she and husband Gautam Basu began to support charitable projects in his hometown of Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta). Hurley sees the tiny, yet potent, cooking ingredient as a symbol of the power in each of us.
“I believe everyone can do something small and it has good repercussions somewhere,” she says.
A small library, which Hurley calls “an alternative space where
kids can get away from the strict Indian education system and make mistakes, try things, read books” was set up. Coin caddies are in Kansai shops to collect funds for RCFC, a rehabilitation centre for handicapped children of low-income families. To the Local Bazaar,
a children's book illustrated by patuas (scroll-painting storyteller) Karuna Chitrakar, was published to help preserve the dying art.
Mango Smiles, a zine of culture-sharing stories by children in India, Japan, and America is printed.
Hurley seems most passionate about Jeevika (“livelihood” in Sanskrit), a development project that empowers rural women. Trained in kantha embroidery, the women produce ornaments, chopstick pouches, and other handicrafts that are then sold abroad by people like Hurley. The money goes back to the women in the form of fair wages and Micro-loans.
“Jeevika is about raising their social, not just financial, status,” she says. “It's about giving people the opportunity to make something bigger happen … I have seen Jeevika grow, so I know they are doing good work and the women are progressing. That makes it worth trying harder.”
Her goal, surprisingly, is not for Mustard Seeds to expand, but rather, to spore.
“We wouldn't like Mustard Seeds to get bigger. We'd like mushrooms,” says Hurley. “We'd like more people to say 'Hey, as a family we could do this!' or 'As three friends, we could do this!' and stick to it and see what happens. So instead of a chain of Mustard Seeds, we want to inspire people to do their own thing; something maybe they didn't think they could do before.”

Heading to India and looking to volunteer? Know a business that will display a RCFC coin caddy? Care to sell, or even design, Jeveeka handicrafts? Have a youngster who could write for Mango Smiles? Interested in attending World Talk? Contact Maura Hurley: http://www.geocities.com/cal_mustard/

Text: Rori Caffrey