International

Hi! My name is Kristina, and I am a fourth year student in International Studies and Modern Languages, Régime d’immersion. I found out about the International Internship Program in my first year of university at the President’s Brunch during U101 week, and haven’t looked back since!

During first and second year, I went to the information sessions about the program, and spoke to the coordinators many times about how the internship would fit into my course of studies. Finally, it was time to apply!

The internship program appealed to me because it is cost effective, and you gain real work experience at a NGO in the international field. Perhaps the hardest part is deciding where you want to go and what you want to do!

It is hard for me to pinpoint the specific time in my life I started wanting to go to India, but for quite some time now, I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to go. I wanted to see the many faces of India, and savour all of the sights, sounds, and of course, tastes!

Now all of this planning has finally become a reality! I am living in a neighborhood just twenty minutes south west of Delhi, in a boarding house with seventeen other Indian students and professionals. I walk to work in the morning, and am just getting started on some major language projects there.

This is the first trip that I have taken where I have been so aware of myself, and the impact I make in society. During our pre-departure training in Canada, we oriented ourselves by talking about our privilege, and how we would face some ethical problems during our internships. Although this second fact has proven true, it has been great to keep in contact with the other interns and of course, the coordinators for discussion. I think every trip you make should have this type of preparation. I have learned so much about myself, both positive and negative, and I am only three weeks in!

During our pre-departure training, our professor showed us a TED talk by Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie called “The Danger of a Single Story.” She talked about how people too frequently have a single story, or a single preconceived idea, of places and people. These single stories, often based on what we see in the media, lead to stereotypes and generalisations about populations and places. She talked about how, for example, when she had written her first novel, her professor told her that it was not authentically African–an ironic statement given that her professor was American. Her professor, she explained, had a single story about Africa and Chimamanda’s novel did not fit into his preconceived image of Africa. In his eyes, therefore, her novel and her depiction of Africa and Africans were not authentic.
I was reminded of this TED talk a couple weeks ago when I was having lunch with some friends in Udaipur. We began conversing with a man sitting at the table next to us who was in India completing a photography project he had started years ago. The man was an experienced traveller who had visited many parts of India many times and felt it necessary to tell us which places were worth visiting and which were not. He felt that Indians from the bigger cities like Delhi and Jaipur were too “western” and told us instead that if we were looking for an authentic Indian experience we were to visit Jaisalmer, a town in the Rajasthan desert, where people live just as they used to. Tradition and difference, to him, I suppose equated authenticity. What I would really like to know is what makes someone or something “authentically” Indian. Why, for example, is an Indian village more authentic than an Indian city? Is it simply because, in many villages, the way of life has changed little and at a slow pace? Is it because Indian cities are too similar to North American cities? I think perhaps he had a single story of what India should be, one that romanticised tradition and village life. Like Chimamanda said in her talk, the existence of a single story leads us to focus on the differences between people rather than the similarities. Tourists and travelers are fascinated by difference. In fact I think a lot of travelers have single sories of their destination countries and when what they find does not correspond to their preconceived images and ideas or is too similar to their own countries, they dismiss it as unauthentic. Yet neither India nor any other country is small and homogeneous enough to fit into a single story.
I am of the belief that everywhere in India is authentically Indian. Moreover, I do not believe that tourists and travelers are capable of judging authenticity, especially when we really only see or experience the tip of the cultural iceberg–the overt pieces such as certain behaviours and practices. Food, dance, music, and language, for example, are all observable or tangible. But what about the underlying, covert pieces of the iceberg? Attitudes, values, beliefs, feelings, myths and perceptions are all things that cannot be observed, let alone understood, by foreigners. And it is these unobservable pieces that comprise the largest part of any culture. So how then, as foreigners, can we determine what is “authentic” and what is not? Well… we can’t. Whenever we go abroad, we carry with us certain expectations, assumptions and preconceived ideas and images of our destination country, but at the end of the day, we have to accept that there will be things we like and some that we do not, there will be things that meet our expectations and some that do not. Most importantly, we, as foreigners, have no place dismissing something as unauthentic when it is not the way we thought it would be, or think it should be. We have to accept that there is always more than a single story and that there are similarities between people and places, no matter where in the world we travel; we should embrace these other stories and embrace not only difference between people and places but also the numerous similarities.

In the end I went to Delhi instead of Jaisalmer but I think my experience in India was “authentic” nonetheless. And after 3 months, I definitely have more than a single story of India.

Hello from the Himalayas!

For my final blog post about my international internship experience, I have decided to insert clips and pieces of my weekly-blog submissions. The weekly-blog writing has been an interesting and valuable exercise. The blogs capture both my professional and personal experiences about the internship. The exercise  provided me the time to think and reflect about my work, the staff, my projects and my living experience up in the hills.

September 22^nd 2011

Even during my short time here so far, I have ran into some ‘development dilemmas’ and issues. Firstly, my supervisor has expressed her own personal dilemmas in working within the community and with the organization. The majority of the staff are from the local areas, however she is from an urban area and can be classified as ‘upper class’. She feels sometimes that the local people and communities resent her presence here, she says ‘they look at me, see that I can speak English, see that I have a laptop… and the women probably think that I am privileged because I do not have to cook, clean, pick the grass, take care of animals and other household duties. My supervisor has a passion for development and has expressed her happiness in living in the mountains as oppose to the cities but again does not want to impose onto the local way of living. I also said that international volunteers and interns probably experience the same feeling. We are coming from a privileged background, even more than she is, coming to help these communities ‘develop’ and although our intentions are genuine, there are dilemmas, challenges and problems with the entire idea of it.

Another interesting observation I have taken in while being here is the inequalities that exist within the country and within the community. For instance, the organization is friends with the people that run a resort in the area. The hotel/resort is beautiful, nice rooms, toilets, running water, flowers and plants everywhere and a cooking staff that make incredible food; all of the luxuries. Over the weekend, the family who owns that resort was having a birthday party celebration for their daughter who was turning eight. There were other families there and there were also guests from the hotel who joined in. Most of the families from India that visit are from the cities, like Mumbai and Delhi who are looking to get away from the hustle and bustle into the calm and peace of the mountain area. There was plenty of tea, two birthday cakes, a dinner and a band from the city playing. Yesterday, we had a picnic in the forest with the same group. As the hotel staff brought over the table and silverware to serve lunch, just over the hill, there was a family’s home. Their houses were made of grass and plastic materials. There were no floors, only the ground of mud. Firewood was collected, they had one hen, and the children wore run-down clothing. Meanwhile, the families and children from the lunch were wearing sunglasses, nice mostly Western clothing and holding expensive cameras and bags. So, I felt pretty uneasy about the whole situation, meaning I felt guilty. The whole experience was an eye-opener of the inequalities that exist within the country.

October 5^th 2011

Dr. Sushil, the owner and founder of Aarohi has returned from his traveling. Finally, he is in the office so we, (the international interns) can pick his brain for various information. He is a great guide and compassionate about his work, the people, his staff and development work. He has been further guiding all of his on our work and giving us valuable input. The other day I was sitting in the main office and one of the staff members said that Dr.Sushil wanted to see me. I went down to the clinic to him examining a pregnant patient. He took the time to translate the entire session in English for me, and in Hindi for the patient and for a staff member who is training to a midwife. He ran through a general pre-natal check up. Blood pressure, weight and pulse rate was to be taken. Also, the abdomen exam’s purpose was to feel for the uterus. I have told the staff here that I will study nursing in the future and I am so glad that Dr.Sushil acted upon my interests!! It was a real treat.

October 17^th 2011

I am officially half-way through my internship! Everything is going well. Aarohi had its annual HAAT festival just recently. The festival began on October 13th and will end today, October 18th. The festival brings many people from the community to enjoy dancing, singing, sweets, samosas and all kinds of shops. Aarohi also has a shop set up to sell our products such as soaps and culinary herbs. The evening programs have been very entertaining! Full of both local and regional Indian dancing and singing. Last night we were surprised to hear a hip-hop song with three people performing a hip-hop routine! The other interns and I were the only (women) bouncing around to the song. The men and boys at the festival have proved to be quite rowdy! In fact, Seema, the wife of the owner, was quick to rush us out of the festival when it was getting late, because she said the men will get more and more rowdy, especially when they are drinking alcohol. This type of environment can be considered unsafe for girls and women. Despite this, it has been wonderful to see the community to come out and enjoy each other’s company along with the entertainment. The staff has been telling me that this festival is really the only event that happens around here, so it provides families a nice break from the day-to-day routine.

October 29^th 2011

I recently went a small trip with the other international interns to Rishikesh. Rishikesh has been called the Yoga capital of the world and has been made famous by the Beatles, who stayed at an Ashram there. The trip began with a taxi ride downtown to the train station, followed by an overnight train. I find it quite hard to sleep on the overnight trains, mostly because of the frequent stops that it makes. The stops also provide vendors the time to come in the train and yell out things like chips and chai, even if its 2 am. The train arrived at Haridwar station, and from there, we waited around the in the train station with the intention to catch a bus up to Rishikesh. We walked outside the station in the morning, with all sorts of drivers swarming us to take us anywhere for an over-priced cost. I have learned the average price difference for taxi rides for foreigners and for locals, and it is quite drastic. Anyway, we found out there was an express train to Rishikesh, so we settled for that instead. On the evening of Diwali, we visited an Ashram that was conducing a puja (ritual, offering) to Lord Rama. There were prayers, a lot of singing and offerings of sweets to the Lord. The ceremony was conducted along the ganges, the river and was really beautiful. They also lit lanterns and set them out on the river. What a sight!

November 2^nd 2011

The staff at Aarohi have nicknamed me Chai girl and believe that in another life, I must have been Indian. They say this because I accept all offers of chai (which can be up to 5 a day), love the food, including the spicy pickles, carry the kurta clothing well and have mustered some of my own Indian cooking skills. I have managed, after many attempts, to make a chapatti. I have watched the cook make them, and it looks pretty simple. Brown flour, mixed with water, roll out the dough, put on the pan and then over the propane fire. However, it is not that easy. Finally, my roommates who have been subject to all of my cooking experiments, said last night “you know, this tastes like an Indian could have made this!”

November 12^th 2011

Over my internship, I have also had the time to think about development; what it means, what it involves and what I have learned about my program during this experience. Firstly, I would personally encourage International Development students to enroll in the international internship course, because I feel that I have learned more doing this field-work class than I learned reading, analyzing, researching about the topic at the university. Although I am not dismissing the learning and importance of these courses, I am simply saying that ‘doing’ development is different than ‘learning’ about it, and doing it, is worthwhile. And from doing development, what I have come to realize is that, in this field, one individual is so small. For example, I am in one country, within one state, within one local area, within one organization that services a select local population with specific programs. I teach English to the school children to help them improve their lives and future prospects. I teach a total of 30 children, out of a population of 1 billion. However, although each of our own work is small, change begins with ourselves, with the individual. I read the news recently to find out that global population has reached 7 billion people. And although the field of international development seems like a big machine, intended to benefit large portions of the world, I have realized for myself that I have done well in a day, if I can positively impact one person’s life. Just one person, out of 7 billion.

November 18^th 201

This afternoon, I will be doing my wrap-up presentation. The presentation has some information about myself, (since I never did it at the beginning), the work I have completed and my 20 best pictures during my experience here. We have been doing extra social events this week, because of my departure. Last night, Puneet and the two other interns and I, went over to Premula’s house for dinner. We had plenty of food for dinner including chapattis, a palak/spinach dish, daal, an eggplant dish and a paneer-vegetable dish. For dessert, Premula made us all some hot-chocolate and also had some sweets for us. We all sat around the fire and chatted about all kinds of things, including development challenges in the region. Premula is a free-lance worker who built a house in the village about 15 years ago, next to the owner of Aarohi. She lives in Delhi, but likes to come to the hills every once in a while to escape the city and to contribute to rural development. She is skeptical of people building and developing in the area. Politicians and ‘richer’ Indians are pushing to develop hotels, cottages and large homes in the hills as their vacation getaways. She is worried about the impact on the environment and the extra traffic in the region, especially if they do not give back to the community. She spoke of one man, who is building a house in the area. Apparently, he is an advocate for rural development and believes that local knowledge and labor should be used when building. However, he has ignored his own philosophy and has hired urban labor and is using non-local materials for the construction of the house.

The staff at Aarohi are convinced that I will return to Aarohi later on in the future. They say I have too much “Indian-blood” to not return to the country. I am very glad that I have been invited back and have been offered various homes to stay at, if I return. I also hope that the local population can maintain the beauty of this area by avoiding the development of too many buildings. If however, there is development and construction, hopefully these people will contribute to the local economy and development of the hills and its people.

I am so happy that I have decided to partake in the international internship course at OttawaU. The internship is my last course in my undergraduate degree of International Development and Globalization and it was the perfect way to end my studies.  I have learned countless amounts of things about development, about life and about myself during the experience.

Thank you to the University and Faculty of Social Science for offering and facilitating the internship program.

Lorsque l’on observe les nombreuses différences qui existent entre provinces et régions indiennes, on réalise à quel point il est juste de décrire ce pays comme diversifié et en vanter la richesse culturelle. Le plus remarquable c’est que, malgré de nombreux  facteurs historiques, géographiques et politiques (qui généralement poussent vers une homogénéisation culturelle), cette diversité survit même au sein de frontières communes.

Ce qui est fascinant, c’est d’observer aujourd’hui la facilité avec laquelle cette chose que l’on appelle mondialisation vient, presque avec un air moqueur, écraser ces quelques milliers d’années de résistance. Bien sur on me dira que si les moghols, ayant longtemps occupé certaines régions de l’Inde actuelle, avaient accès à des outils tels qu’Internet, l’Inde serait possiblement aujourd’hui à majorité musulmane. Peut-être même que si les moyens de transport avaient été plus rapides et efficaces, il n’y aurait pas tant de différences entre les Sud le Nord de l’Inde. La question n’est pas là, ténacité culturelle ou simples limites ‘’techniques’’, le fait est qu’aujourd’hui les choses changent, et vite.

La région de Kumaon, où je me trouve actuellement, est une partie assez  reculée de l’Inde se trouvant dans les Himalaya centrales. Le transport y est difficile et pour beaucoup il faut marcher plusieurs heures avant d’atteindre une route parfois bloquée en raison des pluies. Cela, sans compter que, pour des régions plus éloignées, il faut rouler jusqu’à 12 heures en jeep partagée avant d’arriver à une gare de train.

Pourtant, ces obstacles semblent insuffisants pour faire échec à l’invasion de la mondialisation quand on voit comment les habits, pratiques et le savoir local se transforment en contact de nouveaux concepts ‘’importés’’.

Les habitants de la région de Kumaon ont historiquement toujours été très connectés à la terre et la forêt, particulièrement à cette dernière qui permettait, en offrant plantes médicinales, matériaux pour l’artisanat ou tout simplement du bois pour la cuisson, une certaine subsistance dans la région.

Tandis que les hommes travaillaient généralement la terre, les femmes passaient la majorité de leur temps dans la forêt à récolter ces diverses ressources, leurs tâches étaient complémentaires et la région était autosuffisante.

Vint le régime britannique avec, comme bagage, de nouvelles idéologies, une éducation occidentale et un mode de vie différent. Les hommes furent tranquillement poussés hors de la ferme pour travailler dans les villes et villages avoisinants pour chercher un revenu stable désormais vu comme nécessaire. Ainsi les femmes se retrouvent surchargées entre le travail à la ferme et la forêt. Tranquillement, cette nouvelle division du travail devient la nouvelle structure ‘’traditionnelle’’ de la société Kumaonaise.

Avec les projets de développement lancés par le gouvernement ainsi que certaines ONG plus de routes sont construites dans la région, les moyens de transport se multiplient et deviennent plus accessibles. L’effet direct est que les hommes peuvent alors s’éloigner plus, sont plus efficaces, et sont conséquemment plus riches. De plus, avec l’amélioration des transports, il devient aussi possible d’importer divers produits et ressources dans la région.

Avec l’augmentation du revenu des hommes et la disponibilité de ces nombreux nouveaux produits, les femmes sont de plus en plus poussées à acheter ce qui est nécessaire plutôt que récolter les ressources en forêt. Pourquoi produire du savon naturel lorsqu’on peut en acheter ou se soigner avec des plantes lorsque des médicaments efficaces sont disponibles…

Tandis que le rôle des femmes, pilier de la société kumaonaise, est de plus en plus réduit, les hommes eux continuent leur quête de travail à l’extérieur, beaucoup quittent même définitivement vers les grands centres urbains en envoyant de temps à autres une part de leur salaire à leur famille.

Pour couronner le tout, le partage oral de certaines connaissances traditionnelles est interrompu. Les femmes passent moins de temps en forêt et perdent leur unique activité de groupe qui offrait la chance d’interagir avec les autres. Les nouvelles générations ne savent que très peu de chose en ce qui concerne la gestion de la forêt et, alors que la biodiversité de celle-ci est aujourd’hui en danger, plusieurs reconnaissent finalement l’importance du savoir local.

Avec la dégradation de la forêt et l’agriculture en montagne devenant de plus en plus difficile (terre de moins en moins riche et manque d’espace) l’autosuffisance n’est plus possible et cela encourage encore plus les hommes à aller chercher du revenu ailleurs. De plus, la vie en montagne est difficile et l’isolement n’intéresse plus les jeunes qui sont davantage attirés par l’image projetée de la vie urbaine. Le savoir et l’artisanat traditionnel sont abandonnés au profit des produits synthétiques du marché. Dans le secteur du textile par exemple, on préfère suivre l’effet de mode qui s’avère être plus économique (Les produits synthétiques et importés sont moins chers que les produits naturels locaux), ceci est une autre grande perte pour cette région où les techniques traditionnelles de filage et de tissage sont reconnues. L’utilisation de plantes locales pour la teinture du tissu est aussi graduellement négligée.

Autant une critique de la mondialisation et du colonialisme que du développement, ou plutôt de certaines formes de celui-ci, ceci démontre que les besoins de chaque peuple et de chaque société ne sont pas identiques et que, sans la bonne approche, il est possible de bouleverser toutes structures déjà existantes.

Alors que les colons britanniques avaient déjà heurté les bases même de la société kumaonaise, les tentatives de développement dans la région, inappropriées, n’ont fait que complètement achever celles-ci.  Aujourd’hui le rôle de la femme dans la région (ainsi qu’une bonne partie des Himalayas Indiennes où la situation est similaire) est réduit et les inégalités se sont élargies. Les pratiques locales se dissipent et à la place une consommation extensive s’installe. La forêt, ayant longtemps été le berceau de la population locale, décède. Le paysage se transforme soudainement, exposant des déchets qui s’accumulent de jour en jour. Et alors là on se demande, jusqu’à quel point on peut consommer dans une région où il n’y a toujours pas de système de gestion des déchets…

Rajasthan, specifically the district of Udaipur where I am currently volunteering, has some of the highest rates of illiteracy in India; according to the Annual Status of Education Report conducted by Pratham in 2006, the largest NGO working to improve education for underprivileged children in India, less than 50% of Rajasthani children in grades three to five can read the alphabet[1]. However, enrolment rates are high, around 85 to 90 per cent, which means that more than half of children in Rajasthan attending school, but simply not learning. In other words, much work remains to be done to improve the quality of education. In 2009, the Indian Government committed itself to ensuring free education for all children aged 4 to 16 via the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, or simply the Right to Education Act (RTE). Yet no matter the intentions of this act, it fails to address what I think are some of the biggest contributing factors to poor learning outcomes in rural Indian schools. Furthermore, the RTE has unintended distributional consequences and even serves to exacerbate the problems.

While poor academic performance can be rooted in any number of varying issues, I have observed, in my visits to rural government schools in Udaipur, some issues that are particularly common. The material taught in government schools, for instance, is often irrelevant to children in rural areas and the teachers often use teaching methods that encourage little participation from the students, if any. In fact, the teachers seldom seem interested in teaching and often have little respect for the children from tribal, often portrayed as backward, areas. Yet it is easy to understand the teachers’ lack of enthusiasm; many of the teachers I have met reside in the city of Udaipur and travel for two to five hours every day to get to and from work. Teachers rarely choose to work in the villages because they are remote and lack basic facilities and villagers, who more often than not speak only the local dialect or language, do not understand or speak Hindi. Moreover, teachers are not provided with any extra incentive to work in the villages. In essence, there are stereotypes as well as cultural and some times linguistic barriers between students and teachers that I believe are at the root of rural students’ poor academic performance. Yet RTE does not address these barriers or any of the aforementioned issues, for that matter.

Seva Mandir, the organisation for which I am volunteering, has been working with the rural and predominantly tribal populations of Udaipur district of Rajasthan for over 40 years. Through a variety of interventions, Seva Mandir is working to improve children’s education in rural Udaipur by providing children with access to, and generating community demand for, quality education. The organisation’s interventions in education include Shiksha Kendras, non-formal education centres that provide education to out-of-school children up to grade three; Seasonal Residential Learning Camps, 60-day learning camps organised three times a year that target primarily out-of-school working or migrant children; Youth Resource Centres, which provide vocational training to rural youth and encourage them to become active participants in the development process; and Sahyog Kendras, activity centres integrated into government schools that seek to supplement the education children receive from the government teachers and provide extra help to students who are struggling. Moreover, Seva Mandir engages parents and community leaders in conversation about education and encourages them to enrol their children in school and be involved in their children’s education. Following its mandate of participatory development, Seva Mandir also hires local people to teach and run the programs in the villages, which allows communities to play an active role in education their children. Yet because of the RTE, much of the work Seva Mandir is doing may no longer be recognised; in fact it will become illegal for Seva to run its non-formal education programs, namely it’s shiksha kendras and seasonal camps.

The RTE states, “every child of the age of six to fourteen years shall have a right to free and compulsory education in a neighbourhood school till completion of elementary education.”[2] It goes on to define a school by listing certain norms and standards to which it should comply, and states that institutions that do not live up to the government’s norms and standards will not be allowed to operate. Whereas a school should have at least one classroom for every teacher, an office, a kitchen, a library, and separate toilets for boys and girls, the shiksha kendras run by Seva Mandir consist only of one small classroom and are often run by one or two teachers who may teach children of all different ages and learning levels. And while the minimum number of working days in an academic year should be 200 to 220 (depending on the grade) the seasonal camps operate for a total of only 180 days. Moreover, the teachers who work at the seasonal camps and the shiksha kendras are only required to have the equivalent of a high school diploma and have attended additional training by Seva Mandir, which is less than the minimum requirements to become a government school teacher. The RTE also states that teachers must follow and complete the curriculum outlined by the government; however, the seasonal camps and the shiksha kendras are intended only to provide basic literacy and math skills in order to prepare out-of-school children for regular school and, as such, do not follow the same curriculum as the government schools. Nonetheless, children who attend shiksha kendras and proceed to enrol in government schools often out-perform their peers. This is arguably because students are taught according to their academic ability rather than their age, and the teachers hired by Seva Mandir do not have to follow a curriculum and are often more enthusiastic and offer more encouragement to their students than the government teachers. Yet because the RTE defines a school by infrastructure, number of working days, and staff, rather than by learning outcomes, Seva Mandir’s seasonal residential learning camps and shiksha kendras, which do not live up to the government’s norms and standards, do no qualify as schools and might have to close.

The RTE also poses problems for the teachers in the government schools. First and foremost, teachers are not allowed to hold students back until the eighth grade, which means that a student that normally might have benefited from repeating a year of school early on might continue to struggle through the remainder of his or her schooling. Additionally, the strict curriculum outlined by the government leaves teachers with little flexibility to spend extra time on material with which students are struggling. To compound the matter, students are enrolled based on their age rather than their ability. An out-of-school child who has never attended school, upon enrolment, would be placed in the grade of children of his or her own age, rather than in the grade suited to his or her academic ability. While the act states that it is the responsibility of the schools to provide “additional training” to out-of-school children enrolling for the first time in school, schools in rural areas rarely have the resources to provide said training. It seems as though the RTE, rather than helping students, is ensuring that students who struggle or fall behind in school will continue to struggle and never catch up.

Whereas the RTE might have been intended to improve education in India, it has serious distributional consequences for the most disadvantaged children. It is threatening the existence of NGO interventions, such as the education programs run by Seva Mandir, which have acted more or less as a security net for rural and disadvantaged children. Moreover, the RTE will not remedy the stereotypes and cultural and linguistic barriers that are hindering rural and tribal children’s academic performance in the first place. In reality, it fails to address the issue of the quality of education at all. However, while the RTE is not a comprehensive piece of legislation, it is at the very least a step—albeit misplaced—toward improving education in India.

Namaste!

Greetings again, from the Himalayas in India. I am approximately 2/3 through my internship and everything is going very well. I am enjoying the work, the staff, the location, the food, everything about this entire experience! I am so pleased that I have decided to participate in the internship as it really provides a field-work perspective to my program, International Development and Globalization.

The staff at Aarohi, the organization I am volunteering for, have nicknamed me Chai girl. Most of the staff claim that I am actually an Indian, or have an Indian soul. I have adjusted well to life here, I love the food, accept all offers of tea (which can be about 5 a day), love the music and the entire atmosphere in the mountains. I have also started cooking Indian food and I have to say, I am getting pretty good! At home, I would always go out for Indian food, because I thought cooking it was to hard, or complex. But, here my experimentation is starting to pay off!

Along with adjusting well to life here, I am also enjoying the work I am doing. At the beginning my internship, I have expressed interest in observing and assisting with the organization’s medical camps. I have this interest because I hope to study in Nursing post-graduation at OttawaU. Luckily, I have had the amazing opportunity to sit with doctors all of specialties while they treat patients, assisted with the school children’s health check-ups, observe pre-natal examinations, and most of all, observe a surgery. During a medical camp in October, I had the opportunity to watch a hysterectomy, the removal of the uterus. As I was watching the surgery, I was amazed that I found myself, firstly, in India, up in the mountains and lastly, in an operating room watching a surgeon perform the surgery. These kind of experiences do not come by very often. I also thought that the possibility of observing a surgery in Canada for someone like me, meaning completely untrained, is very slim. Therefore, I was  very thrilled by this rare and unique opportunity that presented itself during my internship.

Otherwise, most of my day to day activities evolve around facilitating the English program at the organization’s school. The simple quote of “give a man a fish, and feed him for a day; teach a man, and feed him for lifetime” that provides a slight undertone to development work, has manifested itself in my work here. I was assigned the task to write a volunteer guide, because my supervisor felt that hosting volunteers can be more beneficial if the volunteers share their knowledge and skills with the staff at the organization. Volunteer placements are short-term, and therefore if they do not share their knowledge and skills, after the time of their placement, the benefits that they bring will also leave with them. Another instance of this concept, manifesting itself during my internship was through the Education Steering Committee meeting in October.

At the meeting, the chair suggested to create a group that would utilize English-speaking staff members to teach English to the teachers at the school who teach the language. For example, as a volunteer, it is more beneficial and sustainable, to teach the teachers how to teach English as oppose to directly teaching the students. After this suggestion at the committee meeting, I quickly jumped to the initiative and began planning this group. I just recently made a presentation to the office staff, and we are set to begin the classes next week! It was interesting to see that simple quotation manifest itself into a real-life situation in the field of development. And, as simple as the quotation may be, it does make sense. We are abroad and interning to learn from each other, to start with what they have and to build with them; this is a more sustainable approach to development as it is long-lasting. With this approach, the knowledge and skills that volunteers can offer to development organizations will be carried on into the future, beyond our departure.

For my second blog post I will describe my internship with Seva Mandir. But first I will provide a brief description of the organization and its work. Seva Mandir is a grassroots, non-governmental organization situated in Udaipur, Rajasthan. It has been working in the Udaipur and Rajsamand districts for over forty years, and it now reaches out to over 600 villages. These villages are grouped into zones, which are further grouped into five blocks (Badgaon, Girwa, Jhadol, Kherwara, and Kotra). Seva Mandir seeks to promote sustainable development through a participatory democracy. Its mission is “to make real the idea of society consisting of free and equal citizens who are able to come together and solve the problems that affect them in their particular contexts” (Seva Mandir, n.d.a). Seva Mandir works in the areas of health, education, natural resources, village institutions, and women and child development. The organization focuses its development projects on three broad categories: improving livelihoods, strengthening human capabilities, and institution building.

The population which Seva Mandir reaches out to is 68% tribal (Seva Mandir, n.d.b). The tribal population belong to the Mina caste which are a traditionally land owning Scheduled Tribe. Scheduled Tribes are a historically disadvantaged group in India, and they often have restricted capabilities and a low socio-economic status. Tribal women, in particular, fair poorly on most human development indicators, particularly health and education. In addition, these women face many problems including high rates of domestic abuse, abandonment, and witch accusations.

My project assignment falls under the Women and Child Development (WCD) department. Seva Mandir recognizes the importance of women as agents of development; that is, sustainable development cannot be achieved while unequal gender relations and dicrimination against women exist.

Until recently, all problems that arose within the tribal communities were brought to the Caste Panchayats, which are the traditional elected body that decides on issues affecting a community or resolves problems between members of the community. The Caste Panchayats are male dominated, often with very limited scope and are generally insensitive to issues facing women. In order to create a platform upon which women could address their issues, Seva Mandir established Women’s Resource Centres (WRCs) in selected tribal panchayats. The Women’s Resource Centres were intended to increase the capacity of women to solve the problems that are affecting them. There are now a total of nine WRCs operating in all five blocks.

As part of my internship with Seva Mandir, my main project is researching the capacity of WRC leaders to solve problems. My research will contribute to Seva Mandir’s annual effect indicator report, which takes a series of indicators (i.e. the capacity of WRC leaders) and measures them to evaluate the impact of a particular program, or to determine areas of improvement. To conduct my research, I first developed a series of questionnaires to be used in various individual interviews, group interviews, and focus groups with different stakeholders. I also completed a literature review of previous reports that have been written by Seva Mandir staff and volunteers on the problems faced by women and on the WRCs.

From there I was assigned a translator who can speak both Hindi and the tribal language Mewari. I am currently in the data collection stage where I do a few field visits each week to conduct my interviews. I have been assigned four of the nine WRCs to research; each one is in a different block, which is great because it means I get to visit all of the blocks (Jhadol, Girwa, Kherwara, Badgaon), except for Kotra. The villages where I conduct my research are incredibly beautiful—completely rural, with lots of hills; the monsoon season was very good this year so the land is very lush and green. The women in the WRCs are used to being interviewed by volunteers, which makes for very successful data collection as they do not hesitate to respond to my questions.

The thing that I wanted to bring up in this blog post is the fact that—despite the success of my data collection—I am finding it challenging to digest some of what I am learning. The role of the WRC is to solve problems faced by women in the community. The most common examples of these are domestic abuse and abandonment. There are normally three WRC leaders and 5-10 members who are very diligent at investigating the problems presented to them. They meet with all parties involved in a conflict and hear the case from all perspectives. From there they devise a solution to the problem. Here is where I have been facing some difficulty. In Canada, if a woman was facing domestic abuse at home and she approached someone (e.g. the police) about it; the response would normally be an arrest and a trial, at the end of which the guilty party would be sent to jail.* In the tribal villages in Rajasthan, on the other hand, the most common solution is mediation and counselling at which point the woman returns to her abusive husband and they live “happily ever after.” The WRC does follow up with the women on a monthly basis after a problem has been solved; but nevertheless, their resolutions are still shocking.

The relevant concept that describes my dilemma is cultural relativism, which is the principle that a person’s practices, beliefs, values and so on should be understood in terms of their culture rather than the culture of the observer. If I was to evaluate the WRC based on my own culture, beliefs, and values then I would conclude that it is a flawed and ineffective program that is destructive to the safety and empowerment of women. It would be ineffective to judge the WRC in a Western context, mostly because this is not the West and there are a great many differences in cultural practises, beliefs, and values. For example, in the traditional communities that I am visiting to collect data, the role of the woman is to bear children, look after the children and the cattle, and do the housework. Women do not earn an income—or at least not enough to sustain a family—thus they depend on men. Even when a husband passes away, a widow rarely lives independantly, rather she lives with and depends on her in-laws. That is, if her in-laws still accept her. Most commonly, widows in rural India are ostracized and face a whole slew of other problems, including facing witch accusations say, for example, if there is a drought.

Having said this, some of the key findings in my research point to a change in mentality towards women in the communities where I am conducting my research. In the beginning, when the WRCs were first established, most of the WRC leaders and members faced much resistance in their communities, especially from the men. The WRC leaders worked in fear, and avoided speaking to men. Now, with the help of some intervention by Seva Mandir (e.g. gender sensitization workshops) the WRCs have been accepted by the men in the community and have even begun gaining a reputation in neighbouring villages. In one of my interviews with a WRC leader, she noted that the men in her community recognize the WRC as a legitimate body and realize that problems involving women are best solved by women. In another interview, a WRC member approximated that the percentage of cases which come to both the WRC and the Caste Panchayat in her community is 70:30 in favour of the WRC. This is a huge finding considering that the Caste Panchayat leaders are known to be corrupt, accepting bribes and often deciding on a solution that is more favourable to the man involved in a case.

More and more, while doing my research, have I realized that the women working in the WRCs have been empowered by their leadership roles and responsibilities. Indian feminist activist and researcher, Srilatha Batliwala, provides five fundamental components of women’s empowerment. These are: “(1) creating critical consciousness; (2) access to knowledge and information; (3) developing new skills; (4) collective or organization-building; (5) alternative education opportunities” (as cited in Sharma, 2008, p.10). Working in the WRCs, or participating in any of the other women’s empowerment programs established by Seva Mandir’s WCD department, provides tribal women in rural communities with these five components. First of all, being able to discuss problems and brainstorm solutions provides them with critical thinking skills; second, Seva Mandir provides the women with resources and support if needed; third, the women attend training workshops to help them gain new problem-solving and decision-making skills; fourth, they participate in an election process to determine the leaders of the WRCs and other womens’ groups; and finally, being given the experience to attend workshops and meet collectively to discuss various issues that arise provides the women with valuable learning opportunities, despite the fact that they are mostly illiterate and have no formal education. Furthermore, in keeping with it’s mandate, Seva Mandir conducts all of its programs under a model of participatory development; thus, it does not intervene on the work of the WRC, rather it provides guidance and resources when necessary or when requested.

So, in returning to my dilemma, when analyzing my research and facing case studies that challenge my personal values—like the one where a woman returned to her abusive husband, or the one where a woman returned to the man who abandoned her for another woman and the three of them (man and two wives) now live under the same roof—I should not be judging the solutions the WRC leaders devise. Rather I should be focusing on the fact that there are groups of women who have been empowered to solve the problems that are facing women in their community. I should also recognize the fact that the WRCs have provided tribal women with a platform that allows them the opportunity to be heard and helped, rather than oppressed by traditional male leaders.

*I recognize that this example may not be completely accurate, at least not in every situation where a Canadian woman faces domestic abuse. I am well aware that the Canadian justice system is not perfect and that systemic discrimination of women still exists in the west. I merely meant to provide a simplified contrast to convey a point about the difference, as I perceive it, between the responses to problems facing women in Canada and the case resolution I have seen in practice in the WRCs.

Seva Mandir (n.d.a). Mission. Retrieved from http://www.sevamandir.org/about-us/mission, on October 23, 2011.

Seva Mandir (n.d.b). Work Area. Retrieved from http://www.sevamandir.org/where-we-work/work-area, on October 23, 2011.

Sharma, Aradhana (2008). Logics of Empowerment: Development, Gender, and Governance in Neoliberal India. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Namaste!

I have been in India for about four weeks now and I am really enjoying the internship so far. It all began with a few very long planes rides that brought the Canada World Youth (CWY) interns to New Delhi. From there, we received orientation from CWY’s partner in India called iVolunteer. The iVolunteer manager, Priya also showed a us temple, a historical building and some Southern and Northern Indian cuisine in the city. Once the orientation and training sessions were over, we each head up to our host organization to begin our placements. The taxi ride, after my over-night train ride was quite an experience. The view up the mountains was beautiful and breathtaking. I also spotted a group of monkeys and asked the taxi driver to stop so I could take some pictures! About two hours later, I arrived at my host organization; Aarohi. I was warmly greeted with some breakfast and chai. I was shown around the facilities which include the main office, the kitchen area, the hospital, school and livelihood building. Afterwards, I met with my supervisor, Jyoti to discuss my internship and what sort of projects I would work on during the internship.

The projects that we have collaboratively decided to for me to work on include; teaching English at the school, conducting research for the livelihood sector and lastly, assisting the health staff during the organization’s medical camps. Before I get into my projects, I would like to provide some background information on Aarohi.

Firstly, the word Aarohi means ascendance and growth; growth of thought, creativity and harmony. These concepts were the inspiration that led to the founding of the organization. Aarohi was founded in 1992 by a rural developer and doctor with a mission to create development opportunities for rural Himalayan communities by providing quality health care and education, enterprise promotion, women’s empowerment, sustainable natural resource use and the revival of traditional culture. Aarohi is based in Satoli village in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand. Today, Aarohi has 70 full-time staff, is supported by about 300 members worldwide and operates its programs in over 50 villages, serving a population of 35,000 people. (Source: Aarohi. Review 2010)

The school is called Aarohi Bal Sansar (ABS) which is a state government reconginzed middle school up to class 8. I have been assigned to teach the subject of English to class 7 and 8. The teacher needs to follow the outlined syllabus for three of the lessons, and I lead the other two lessons in other supplementary topics. More specifically, I teach the students lessons on grammar, verb conjugation, nouns, adjectives, writing and developing simple sentences, the difference between singular and plural words and phrases and general reading and writing comprehension. I am really enjoying teaching and the children are really friendly! I also feel that when the teachers observe my lessons, they are also learning. Unfortunately, the reality is that the teachers are not very strong in the subject of English. Although the teachers are great at teaching the syllabus and textbook, the supplementary lessons provide additional learning opportunities for both the students and teachers.

My next project is part of the organization’s livelihood promotion program (LPP) which provides income and employment opportunities to people in the region. I will be working on the organization’s herb initiative program. The objective of the research is to identify the reasons behind the farmers of the region not taking up herb cultivation. I do not have more to say about this because the project is still in the drafting stages!

Lastly, Aarohi has medical camps around once a month. During this time, more doctors and health staff come to the organization. The villages are made aware of the camps and come to seek specialized health care. The medical camp in September was focused on plastic-reconstructive surgery. Due to my own personal interests in health and my goal of studying nursing after my degree, I have asked to observe and assist during the medical camps. Also, a volunteer doctor named Puneet, who stays here quite often, has also been giving me information sessions on medicine, anatomy and physiology.

So, these are my main projects during my internship. I am also open to help with any other project as the organization needs. I love living up in the beautiful mountains! The views are wonderful and I enjoy listening to Indian classical music and doing yoga on my sun-filled balcony every morning!

My first four weeks in India have been altogether exciting, overwhelming, and memorable. Another intern named Ailsa and I are living in Udaipur, Rajasthan and working for an organization known as Seva Mandir. Udaipur is a beautiful city surrounded by the Aravalli hills, and home to many lakes. The city itself is bustling and noisy. Here, we have access to some cheap restaurants, a few grocery stores, a shopping mall, a movie theatre, and even a gym. The Old City, which is Udaipur’s downtown market, is just a 5 INR tempo ride away. To escape the hustle and bustle of the city, we just have to hop on one of the jeeps or buses heading out to the field. Seva Mandir reaches out to over 600 villages (mostly tribal communities) in the Udaipur district. I went on my first field visit a last week, and one of the things that struck me most was how peaceful it was compared to the city.

Over the past three weeks we have met a lot of people, mostly other international volunteers. We have also met a family that has had a huge impact on me, despite barely knowing them. The story of this family is what I wanted to share…

One of the people whom we’ve met—we’ll refer to him as Steven—invited us to his friend’s house for dinner during our first weekend in Udaipur. Steven’s friend is a rickshaw driver who lives with his wife and three children in a Hindu-Muslim neighbourhood on the other side of the city. The rickshaw driver, whom we’ll call Moussah, and his family are considered lower-middle class, so while they do not live in the slums they live in an area considered the “next step up.” Moussah’s house consists of one room, no more than thirty or forty square feet, with concrete walls and no door. There is one bed in the room, which we learned is used only by Moussah and his son while the girls and their mother sleep on the floor.

When we arrived, Moussah’s wife, Shadia, was sitting on the floor making samosas, which she sells from her house along with other convenience goods. Shadia has had a broken hand for just over a month; an injury caused by a fall outside. Initially, she went to the hospital to get a cast; however she decided to remove it after a few weeks because her livelihood depends on using her hands to make the samosas that she sells. Earlier this year, Moussah had been hospitalized for two months for infected kidney stones caused by contaminated drinking water. For those two months, the family depended on Shadia’s income, plus there had been hospital fees to pay. So when Shadia injured her hand, she had no choice but to forgo her treatment because they were already struggling to get by.

To me, Shadia is an incredible woman. Not only has she made the sacrifice of her health for her family’s well-being, but she is also the unofficial leader of the women in the community. The women in the neighbourhood look to Shadia for leadership and conflict resolution. As a result of her leadership role, about a year ago Shadia was approached by a private bank who wanted to establish a microfinance program for the women in the area. Now, a year later, Shadia leads monthly meetings with twenty women who have taken loans of 10,000 INR to invest in small business endeavours.

Steven has become so close to Moussah and his family that he now pays the private school fees for the three children. This is an act that should not be considered just charity, for Steven is extremely careful with what he does or does not give. That is, he explained to us that paying for school fees is the only thing he will do for the family in terms of alleviating their expenses. The reason for this is because Steven invests an incredible amount of importance in education, particularly of girls. Not only does he pay the school fees, but he also checks in with the family at least once a week to ensure that they are attending school and completing their homework. He also engages the two girls in conversation about the importance of education, so that he can be sure that they are not attending school simply because he said so, rather that they attend school because they want to and because they understand the importance and value of education.

The girls are incredibly sweet, and very intelligent. On the night we visited them, they busied themselves with writing out all of our names in Sanskrit, and then teaching us how to write them as well. Both girls loved singing songs and wanted us to teach them some of our songs. After exhausting all of the camp songs and nursery rhymes we knew, we resorted to singing the chorus of “Born this Way” by Lady Gaga. Of course, this was the one they loved the most. In order to teach them the chorus, I wrote it out for them, and then the older daughter (who is very good at reading English) transcribed the English words into Sanskrit so that she would remember them.

I was humbled by how truly welcoming and generous Moussah’s family was. Like I mentioned, things are difficult for them at the moment, but they welcomed us back to visit anytime.

We have just recently been told that Moussah and his entire neighbourhood have been given two months to find a new place to live, because the landlord wants to rebuild on the lot. Moussah has been living in that house for fifteen years. It’s the only home his children have ever known. Now they are at a loss to find a new place to live, let alone somewhere that they can afford. I asked Steven whether there was anything we could do. The fact is that Steven could easily put the family up in a place and pay their rent for a few months, but it’s as the saying goes: “Give a man a fish feed him for a day…” What good would it do them?

The few weeks that I’ve been in India have been quite eye opening. India is a country of wide disparities. The house neighbouring Seva Mandir is, in fact, a huge mansion made of marble and owned by the “marble king.” Meanwhile there are entire families living under makeshift roofs on the side of the road. These kinds of contrasts can be viewed all over the city, and probably all over India. It’s hard to know what to feel when we are faced with such obvious disparity, and when we learn of situations being faced by families like Moussah’s especially when—as university students from the west—we are more akin to the wealthier end of the dichotomy. I speak for most of us when I say that we hardly think twice about how privileged we are to be living so stable and secure in our homes.

So, do we feel guilty? Is there any use in feeling guilty? I have resolved not to feel guilty, as there is really no use. It’s by the luck of the draw that we are born where we are born, and into the situation we are born into. As a result, I think it’s best to put our emotions towards doing something effective like volunteering, or even founding an NGO (we have met quite a few young people who are doing just that in Udaipur). That’s not to say that I won’t do anything to help Moussah and his family—I will, even if it’s as simple as spending time with the children, teaching them songs and getting to know them. I am so grateful to have met such a kind-hearted group of people, and I hope that they find a way through this difficult time.

I love many things about India. I love the food, which should come as no surprise to anyone that knows me. I eat with such relish that it is almost embarrassing. But I can’t help myself: potatoes and vegetables cooked in a plethora of spices, creamy kofta, pulses and roti—all eaten with your (right) hand, of course. Oh, and the chai! Sweet, milky black tea served in tiny glasses and sipped slowly. Of course, I also love the fact that drinking chai requires a chai break. The idea of ordering food or drinks “to go” does not exist here—even McDonalds is a sit-down restaurant. I love the traffic, which can best be described as an organized chaos in which street signs and road lines are merely decoration; drivers prefer the excessive use of horns over blinkers; pedestrians are at the bottom of the traffic hierarchy and cows are at the top. Yet despite the apparent lack of road rules, collisions are few and far between. Am I crazy for loving the traffic? Probably… but I would just like to point out that it is a very humbling fact that a driver would probably sooner hit you, the pedestrian, than a cow ambling across the road. Trivialities aside, however, what I admire most about India are the women.

I admire Indian women not because they are beautiful—which they are with their smooth, honey-coloured skin, dark features and brilliant, though often shy, smiles—but because they can carry things on their heads, and I think that deserves respect. Of course, I am only kidding. I have more blog-worthy reasons, but I digress: the women from the villages have amazed me with their ability to carry loads of branches and kindling on their heads sans hands while their slender frames sway gracefully with every step. We have even spotted the odd woman carrying her bag or purse on her head while shopping, as if her head were better equipped for holding things than those handy body parts called hands that come with opposable thumbs. Returning to the point, in all sincerity I admire Indian women for their humility, strangely assertive generosity and general desire to take care of people, but most of all for their resilience.

This week two other interns and I had the pleasure of meeting a woman who I think embodies all of the qualities mentioned in my sweeping and romantic generalisations about Indian women, and I would like to share a little bit about her… Sadhna* is a young, widowed mother of 3 confident and energetic daughters. They live in Udaipur in a one-room apartment that doubles as a kitchen and a bedroom. I’m not great with dimensions, but I am fairly certain that their apartment is smaller than the bathroom my sister and I so often used to fight over at home. Sadhna’s husband was abusive and an alcoholic. He died of alcohol related problems a few years ago. She has since met another man whom she loves and would like to marry. However, her grandmother will not allow it. If Sadhna chose to disregard her grandmother, she could quite plausibly be alienated from her family and her community. Sadhna’s sister also found herself trapped in a brutal marriage for a number of years; she suffers now from post-traumatic stress disorder because her husband tried to burn her alive. Nonetheless, both these women are resilient. Sadhna works hard to support her family and, on a scant monthly wage of about 1500 rupees, affords to send her 3 girls and herself to school—she was never educated as a girl but is now in 11^th grade.

We met Sadhna at a Navratri celebration. Navratri is more or less a nine (nava)-night (ratri) harvest festival that occurs four times a year (at the beginning of each season) and involves fasting and a lot of late nights of music and dancing. The Navratri dance is called Dandiya and is performed as such: everybody in the community forms two concentric circles moving in opposite directions under a ceiling of garlands and lights and bangs sticks together to a beat undetectable to foreigners. Before we could even introduce ourselves, Sadhna had pulled us each into a hug—a surprisingly strong one given her small stature. Then without even knowing my name, she took my hand and led me into the festivities. Since we didn’t have dandiya sticks to participate in the dancing, she tracked down her girls who each donated one of their own. After an hour of dancing, Sadhna invited us to her house where we sat on the floor and played singing and clapping games—the kind we played in elementary school—with her two youngest daughters. She offered us dinner and then, when we declined, yoghurt and apple just to be sure. It was on our way home that we learned of Sadhna’s past; if I hadn’t already been impressed by how confident and open she had been toward us, I certainly was at that moment.

In fact, women all over India have faced and continue to face enormous hardships: domestic and dowry violence, which transcends caste; abuse of lower caste women by higher caste men; female infanticide and high rates of maternal mortality, which has led to a phenomenon of missing girls; systemic discrimination; and lack of legal or other forms of recourse. Arguably, many of these hardships stem from a cultural preference for boys—a preference that still lingers today. Both men and women carry out this kind of favouritism, but there are also plenty of men and women who are working to eliminate it and reverse the damage it has already created. Many people work on a personal level: like Sadhna who, after all that she has faced, is ensuring a better future for her daughters.