Orientation...part 1

Welcome to my blog. I will try and keep this updated throughout the year as I travel throughout India, learn about the development space in India, and progress in my own project. For many of you who are unfamiliar with the organization that brought me to India, perhaps I should first tell you about AIF and the Service Corps.

AIF is a non-profit that works in the development sector in India, primarily through its partnerships with local NGOs (non-government organizations). The AIF partner NGOs usually fall into one of the three areas of focus: public health, education, and livelihood. Besides providing funding to the local NGOs, AIF also runs two of its own projects, one of which is the Service Corps. The Service Corps consists of twenty to thirty young professionals from the US who spend about a year at an NGO in India. The program basically offers each Service Corps Fellow an opportunity to work at the grass roots level in the development sector, while also providing the host NGO a free volunteer that will hopefully have some relevant skills to aid in a capacity building project. To read more about the Service Corps, here is the website: http://www.aifoundation.org/serve/servicecorps/default.htm

My placement has been with an NGO in the livelihood sector called Seva Mandir. Seva Mandir is based in Udaipur, Rajasthan and works in many different aspects of development. As I get settled into Seva Mandir and develop the project that I will work on over the next year, I will post more information. For now, I will try and give you a quick glimpse into what I have been doing for the past two weeks.

I arrived into Delhi on the first of September and have spent the past two weeks at AIF Service Corps training/orientation. It was a transition period set up to help us get acclimated to various aspects of India and the development space. The majority of the formal orientation time was spent in classes where we had speakers who would discuss the issues facing India. It would be impossible for me to go through all the speakers we met with and the topics that were covered but I’ll try and offer a couple of the highlights. The speakers were all very impressive and included academics, business leaders, government officials, authors, artists, and many inspirational leaders from the development space. The topics that were covered included politics and history, issues related to gender and sexuality, the caste system in India, the Hindu/Muslim conflict, environmental issues, and development under AIF’s three areas of focus.

Along with the lecture/discussions, we also took a few trips “into the field.” This included touring the slums of Delhi, visiting schools out in the rural villages, and meeting with a group of women in a village to see how microfinance has changed their lives. Along with providing great exposure to the development side of India, the orientation also included a private tour of the National Gallery of Modern Art, Bollywood dance lessons, and a couple of nice dinners hosted by some of the important leaders in the Indian private sector.

I thought the formal orientation was amazing; AIF did a terrific job connecting us with great speakers who were able to cover a wide range of important and relevant issues. But even better than the lectures was the informal aspect of orientation. This includes getting to know the other Service Corps Fellows and the adventures we had throughout India. I’m going to save this for my next post after I’ve been able to organize and upload some pictures.