Rural Development
When I think back about my trip to India, I know Wednesday and Thursday will forever stay in my memories. We had the most incredible two days visiting rural development projects with Pratham and Gravis (two Indian NGOs).
Wednesday we visited various education projects with Pratham, an NGO that focuses on education projects such as informal education classes (preparing kids to enter the mainstream schooling system, literacy training, and libraries). We visited everything from tiny libraries, which were PACKED to the brim with kids, to a refugee settlement of roaming people, where Pratham had an informal education project.
As we walked up to that group tears were welling up in my eyes. I had a flashback of Uganda last summer when I went to visit informal schools in the rural areas funded by Save the Children. The poverty is overwhelming and I remember last summer not being able to contain my tears. It's a bit embarrassing to have tears streaming down your face when you are seeing something very positive (kids getting an education that would not have otherwise...often children live so far away from school the parents choose to keep them home working on the farm rather than sending them to school... so I managed to contain my tears this time rather than letting them overflow).
I'll try and upload some pictures so that you can see firsthand. No description would do the scene justice. These are incredibly poor people who travel around in search of work, sometimes staying in a place for 2-3 months. They contruct crude shelters with materials, plastic, cloth. It looks like a camp in essence. The kids are all wearing torn, dirty clothing and are caked with a layer of dirt and us.
Unfortunately, Cindy and I seem to scare small children. I don't think they see foreigners very often and my blonde hair often sets children off on crying fits. So, I try to keep my distance. The older children are intrigued and they like to shake my hand. Cindy and I sit in the back learning to form words and sounds in their local language. I'm going to have to admit the 4 and 5 years olds are far more advanced than we are so far. But I'm trying. All the kids seem very energetic and eager to learn. It was quite inspiring.
Another equally important part of the day was getting to know the staff at Pratham. It was great to meet people my own age that were working in development. It's hard to get to know people in the tourism industry or people on the street, if only due to the language barrier. But spending 10 hours with people, language barrier or not, you do get to know them better and it was a refreshing change.
Yesterday we visited health and rural development projects of Gravis. First we visited their hospital and got to witness surgeries for cataracts. I am now more convinced that ever that I made the right choice in not going to medical school. Watching the surgeries was amazing, but I never would be able to do something like that.
We moved on to a rural training compound and to some water projects. Rajasthan is a desert state and water shortages are always a problem. The monsoon season was terrible this year and the drought is worse than ever. Gravis has constructed man made ponds and contraptions to capture rain water for family use...so we went way out into the field and saw some of the completed projects. Again, the company and the projects made for a memorable experience.
On the way to the hospital, we stopped at a union for mineworkers and learned more about their work with the miners. Many women and children are in this industry and there are serious health and development issues, as you might imagine. We met a 13 year old girl that had been working in the minds since she was about 7 or 8 (when her father died of a mine related illness). She dropped out of school to do so and now she earns about 30 rupees (less than a dollar) a day working all day in the mines with her mom and her 15 year old sister.
It's stories like this that make your heart break and your mind search for solutions and answers. Gravis is one NGO that is tackling the problem by helping workers get compensation for illnesses, helping them organize and fight for better working conditions, and helping the children become educated. Gravis is supported by IDEX, idex.org, and NGO in San Francisco and FSD hopes to support them in the future.
While this has been an amazing trip ever since I arrived, these last two days have left an indelible impression on me. We are off to Udaipur tomorrow, my last stop in India. There we will visit several more NGOs and then decide where to base FSD's efforts in India.
On a side note, the last several days have been very sad for me, as I just found out a good friend in D.C. was diagnosed with cancer and will have to do chemo and radiation over the next many months. I hope you will join me in keeping her in your thoughts and prayers.
Alicia
Wednesday we visited various education projects with Pratham, an NGO that focuses on education projects such as informal education classes (preparing kids to enter the mainstream schooling system, literacy training, and libraries). We visited everything from tiny libraries, which were PACKED to the brim with kids, to a refugee settlement of roaming people, where Pratham had an informal education project.
As we walked up to that group tears were welling up in my eyes. I had a flashback of Uganda last summer when I went to visit informal schools in the rural areas funded by Save the Children. The poverty is overwhelming and I remember last summer not being able to contain my tears. It's a bit embarrassing to have tears streaming down your face when you are seeing something very positive (kids getting an education that would not have otherwise...often children live so far away from school the parents choose to keep them home working on the farm rather than sending them to school... so I managed to contain my tears this time rather than letting them overflow).
I'll try and upload some pictures so that you can see firsthand. No description would do the scene justice. These are incredibly poor people who travel around in search of work, sometimes staying in a place for 2-3 months. They contruct crude shelters with materials, plastic, cloth. It looks like a camp in essence. The kids are all wearing torn, dirty clothing and are caked with a layer of dirt and us.
Unfortunately, Cindy and I seem to scare small children. I don't think they see foreigners very often and my blonde hair often sets children off on crying fits. So, I try to keep my distance. The older children are intrigued and they like to shake my hand. Cindy and I sit in the back learning to form words and sounds in their local language. I'm going to have to admit the 4 and 5 years olds are far more advanced than we are so far. But I'm trying. All the kids seem very energetic and eager to learn. It was quite inspiring.
Another equally important part of the day was getting to know the staff at Pratham. It was great to meet people my own age that were working in development. It's hard to get to know people in the tourism industry or people on the street, if only due to the language barrier. But spending 10 hours with people, language barrier or not, you do get to know them better and it was a refreshing change.
Yesterday we visited health and rural development projects of Gravis. First we visited their hospital and got to witness surgeries for cataracts. I am now more convinced that ever that I made the right choice in not going to medical school. Watching the surgeries was amazing, but I never would be able to do something like that.
We moved on to a rural training compound and to some water projects. Rajasthan is a desert state and water shortages are always a problem. The monsoon season was terrible this year and the drought is worse than ever. Gravis has constructed man made ponds and contraptions to capture rain water for family use...so we went way out into the field and saw some of the completed projects. Again, the company and the projects made for a memorable experience.
On the way to the hospital, we stopped at a union for mineworkers and learned more about their work with the miners. Many women and children are in this industry and there are serious health and development issues, as you might imagine. We met a 13 year old girl that had been working in the minds since she was about 7 or 8 (when her father died of a mine related illness). She dropped out of school to do so and now she earns about 30 rupees (less than a dollar) a day working all day in the mines with her mom and her 15 year old sister.
It's stories like this that make your heart break and your mind search for solutions and answers. Gravis is one NGO that is tackling the problem by helping workers get compensation for illnesses, helping them organize and fight for better working conditions, and helping the children become educated. Gravis is supported by IDEX, idex.org, and NGO in San Francisco and FSD hopes to support them in the future.
While this has been an amazing trip ever since I arrived, these last two days have left an indelible impression on me. We are off to Udaipur tomorrow, my last stop in India. There we will visit several more NGOs and then decide where to base FSD's efforts in India.
On a side note, the last several days have been very sad for me, as I just found out a good friend in D.C. was diagnosed with cancer and will have to do chemo and radiation over the next many months. I hope you will join me in keeping her in your thoughts and prayers.
Alicia
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