Off to Chiang Mai

Dear friends,

After 3 full days in Bangkok our group is heading off to Chiang Mai today at noon.  This is an abbreviated post so I won't say much, but here are some sites I have visited: Wat Arun, Wat Pho, Mountain Temple, Democracy Monument, Vivanmek Mansion, Chinatown, Giant Swing, a wholesale market, and many other markets.  I have also explored 3 different forms of public transportation: the bus, the sky train, and the river bus.

My biggest reaction so far is how differently I am treated when traveling around Bangkok with two other Thai women (days 1 and 2) and when I am traveling with 16 other Americans (day 3).  In the first case, I think people tend to assume I am Thai; in the second case, it is obvious that I am in a group of foreigners.  Even the process of getting in at temples for a Thai and for a foreigner is completely different- foreigners usually have to pay and Thai people just seem to walk in.  We'll see how it is in Chiang Mai.

Happy New Year's Eve and Happy New Year tomorrow.  Chiang Mai is supposed to be a good place for New Year's Eve; hopefully I can stay up late enough to partake in the festivities.  Then tomorrow we'll head out to Mae Ta, a village which recently converted to organic farming.

-ET

PS: Sorry the photos are absent.  I probably will not be able to post any until I return to the States on the 13th of January.

Guest Blogger Colin: Look to See

I asked my brother Colin, a senior at Riverdale High School, to reflect on his experience in India, so here it is for you to read.  Can you tell that we are similar?  Enjoy, and thank you Colin for your reflections.

Bridges to India students 2011.  Colin is second from left.

From November 18^th to December 10^th I was on a trip to India with 12 other students, 1 parent, and 1 teacher from Riverdale High School. This trip, known as “Bridges to India”, has been occurring for the past 8 years. Before the trip we had spent over a year preparing and gathering donations in order to fulfill our goal of $40,000. The money all goes to the whole reason for the trip: supporting Hope Charities. Hope Charities is non-profit that gives aid to poor areas of people in Kerala, India. So far, Hope Charities has created a free clinic, tutoring school, women's sewing/empowerment center, a well for a impoverished community, a house for a poor family, and now, a new Pre-K school for local children. On our trip we visited major sites such as the Taj Mahal, we went to schools and talked with kids our age, and we also painted the new Pre-K school. Before we left on our trip, Daisy Kuchinad, the founder of Hope Charities, gave us one bit of advice: “Look to see”.

From when I landed to when I left, India never failed to be engrossing and surprising.

The traffic is insane, and when I say insane, I mean insane. Auto rickshaws drivers don't seem to understand the idea that the oncoming lane is for vehicles going the other way. Drivers swerve, drive perpendicular to traffic as traffic police who have given up trying to control the chaos stand by. People will cut off others and get into space that looked too small to fit their car (sometimes drivers do try to get into space which really is too small, the scuff marks on the sides of everyone's car is proof of that). Not only is the traffic hectic, but the horns are like an orchestra of the worst musicians ever. Honks surrounded me as soon as I stepped out of the airport in Delhi and they never ceased. Some horns are a standard beep, but in a place like India, being standard is way too boring. So, there are some horns that boom, some that squawk, some that scream, some that yodel, some that sound like “alalalalalalala,” you get the picture. Some cars even have multiple horns that drivers can switch between.

Indian people are by far the most hospitable, friendly, and open people I have ever met. In every school, the students would swarm us, asking for handshakes, our names, pictures, and even autographs. (Would students at a high school in the United States swarm some Indian students like this? Probably not.) The students' hospitality made our integration into their community so much easier. We didn't have to force ourselves in and hope for the best, the students wanted us to join them and they wanted to learn from us as much as they could. Just walking by on the street families will run out to their front porch and watch and wave. At first they may have a slight scowl as they try to figure out why 14 non-Indians are walking down their street, but as soon as they got a wave from us, we got one back and the scowl changed into a full face smile. As we visited houses in the poorer communities, people would sometimes give us gifts. Once the families saw us walking down to their house, they would run over to the nearest fruit tree and grab handfuls of some fruit that you've never seen nor heard of and then hand us every single one. All the while, they are smiling and laughing, clearly happy to give us the fruit.

When economists and politicians say that India will take over the world from the U.S., they mean it. India is constantly moving and evolving. Construction is never ending and people are always working. Neighborhoods and giant business buildings are shooting up everywhere. Outsiders always think of India as a place full of poverty, and while it is, India is also a place full of commerce. Without getting into the numbers, the Indian economy is booming. Now, I don't necessarily care what this means for GDP or how much I can gain from this, I care more about how this could change the way the world is run. The U.S. in terms of spirituality, poor population, population in general, and work ethic is dwarfed by India. Perhaps having India “take over the world” may prove to be a very positive thing. Just like with U.S. culture spreading across the globe, perhaps Indian culture will spread as well. Maybe one day, Americans will be living their lives with a little bit of an Indian attitude. Maybe they will think a little more about the problems that affect the poor, maybe they will be more in touch with their spiritual side, maybe they will think about how the world is not all about them and that there are 7 billion other humans sharing the world with them, and maybe Americans will have to work as hard (not necessarily at their profession) as many other people do across the globe right now.

Living in the U.S., even the most well-educated and globally aware people are still sheltered by the luxuries of American society. Moving out and exploring other countries is completely necessary in order to see how the majority of people actually live their lives. If every American traveled to another country and “looked to see” (and not to a resort town full of people exactly like us), they would begin to understand that the U.S. is not normal at all, but the exception. They might feel grateful to live in the U.S. and they might lose the complacency that all Americans have towards the problems of our world. They might see that American society is in some ways great, but in other ways completely unrealistic and wrong. I know that India did that to me.

Hope Charities, where you can find information and donate: http://hopecharities.org/

Bridges to India 2011 blog: http://riverdaletoindia2011.wordpress.com/

P.S. Be on the lookout in the next few days as my Asian and Asian American Feminist Theology class begins posting about our Thailand trip at http://woointhailand.blogspot.com/.  If I have computer access you'll also find some posts or photos on my own blog.  Thanks for reading.

Thailand and India

Dear friends,

Hello again, this time from the sunny Portland, Oregon.  I'm here for a week before I make my way to the Land of Smiles, aka Thailand, for 3 weeks.  This is part of a field experience for an Asian and Asian American Feminist Theology course I will be taking at Wooster this spring.  Please follow our class' blog here, as I will not be bringing a laptop to post on my own frequently.  I will, however, provide some sort of reflection and photos on this blog once I return in January.

I will start and end my journey in Bangkok but will spend most of my time in Chiang Mai.

We have got quite the full itinerary for our trip.  We'll be learning about the Thai culture (in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Mae Ta, and Doi Lan), visiting with religious and feminist organizations, and also learning about work to eradicate social injustices by various groups in the country.  For me, I see this experience as a way for many of my interests to come together: travel, my identity as half-Japanese growing up in America, social change, and cross-cultural interaction.  I'm also looking forward to all things agriculture: we will be visiting Mae Ta, a village in northern Thailand which recently converted to organic farming.  And, as a special bonus I will get to meet up with Teya, my family's former exchange student who lived with us in 2008-2009!

Thailand's not all about the Grand Palace, although it is definitely one of Bangkok's amazing architectural features.

On another note, I have done little to forget about my experiences this past summer with Global Social Entrepreneurship in India.  I participated in recruiting the team for GSE 2012 and out of a large applicant pool 12 amazing students were selected.  We even made it into the Huffington Post.

My brother also was lucky enough to travel to India for 3 weeks just a few weeks ago, doing some educational tours and also volunteer work in Kerala (see his trip's blog here).  I will post some of his reflections before I leave for Thailand, so be on the lookout.  In the meantime, here's some sneak peek photos.
 

Part of the time Colin spent in India was devoted to making a mural at Hope Clinic.

The yellow submarine credit goes to Colin.

A beautiful Kerala sunset, taken from a Kerala backwaters boat ride.

A Few Final Notes

Dear friends,

Now that I have been in the US for 9 days I thought I would provide some final thoughts on my Global SE experience.  Like one of my Wooster professor uses in class, I have a few "take-home" points to share with you:

• As a generalization, Americans are much more individualistic than Indians.  While family is important for many Americans, it is a significantly larger part of Indian life.  I liked this aspect of Indian culture and I am hoping to replicate it in my own life because I think it will remind me to think of more than just myself.
• I definitely want to return to India.  This time, rather than living in the city, I hope to live in a rural setting.  I found rural India to be very beautiful and I liked the slower pace of life.
• More than feeling like I was collaborating with an NGO on a project, I think Global SE fostered lots of personal growth.  By pushing myself and putting myself in an unfamiliar setting I learned a lot about my own personality, what I value, and what I want to do in the future.
• There are many individuals out there who want to change the world but just don't know how to do it.  If these people could be leveraged, change could be systemic.

I hope you've enjoyed reading about my time in India.  There is a good chance this blog will come back to life soon as I continue my study abroad experiences (I'm headed to Central America in January) or if I learn some cool things at Wooster that I would like to share.  Until then, peace.

ET

Visit to Magadi on 9 July

The Saturday before I left India I had the opportunity to visit Magadi, a peri-urban town located about 45 kilometers outside of Bangalore.  Magadi is home to one of the Resource Centre on Urban Agriculture and Food Security’s (RUAF) projects which I wrote about in a blog post a few weeks ago.  It was great to go see it in person and I learned a lot more about the program.

RUAF has projects around the world (Latin America, Asia, and Africa).  A few years ago they started the From Seed to Table project at a number of sites including in Magadi.  This program was created to strengthen the marketing capacity of farmers.  In Magadi, an association of farmers was started in order to better market their products and thus improve livelihoods.  There is also a special savings group specifically for women.  In addition to better marketing, the association members learn organic farming techniques and have achieved a unity among the agricultural community that did not exist before the association.   

These farmers grow a variety of vegetables but their star vegetable is the carrot.  It was chosen because it can get a high selling price in the Magadi and Bangalore markets where the farmers’ produce is sold.

Value Chain Map for Magadi's carrot.  (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

Some of the farmers in Magadi.  Can you pick out the academic?

Project director, a few female farmers, Laura Valencia (my Wooster friend), and me.

We got to talk to about 15 total farmers (out of the current 157) who are members of the producer association.  All of these farmers are within a 2 kilometer radius of the project office where the group meets once a month.  In addition to trainings, the association gives the chance for farmers to discuss issues or ideas to improve their businesses.  A few of the recent/upcoming initiatives by the association are growing carrots year-round, starting up a nursery, and reintroducing traditional seed varieties into the fields.

In addition to talking with farmers and the association’s facilitator we briefly got to visit one of the fields.  Here we saw an example of a vermiculture system (I of course dug for worms) and we got to view some women weeding a field of radishes (I of course jumped right in on this activity until realizing that no one else was following me).

I was surprised at how successfully this project seemed to be going.  Even though I loved working at Green Corps in Cleveland last summer there were still many, many challenges that the organization was facing.  I did not see nearly as many challenges in Magadi.  Of course, the contexts of the two projects are entirely different.  But I still wonder if there’s something that Cleveland's Green Corps could learn from Magadi?  This question or something similar is something I will probably be exploring in my senior thesis.

Working on our Hiroshi Takeo faces even in semi-rural India.

Back in the USA

Dear friends,

I just wanted to inform you all that I have arrived safely back in the United States.  I am currently sitting in the Newark International Airport waiting for my flight to Detroit.  Once I'm in Detroit I will have a few more blog posts to put up about some of the things I did at the end of my stay in Bangalore (things got a bit too hectic to write the posts there).  I hope you've enjoyed reading and be on the lookout for a few last posts.

ET

New York Times Article "In Fight for Better India, Best to Look Within"

Since I have been in India I have heard a lot of talk about corruption.  Here is an article in the New York Times that takes an interesting approach to solving this problem of corruption.  Our GSE Team has been discussing what we think about this approach.  Feel free to add your own comments on the blog.

Looking Sharp with Two Days of Work Left

Sam and I have two days of work left at EnAble India.  We presented our project to our supervisors, Anju and Shanti, yesterday.  Tomorrow (Friday) we will hand in our report that proposes the creation of a knowledge-sharing network of Indian NGOs that work for employment of persons with disabilities.

Until then, we have lots of work to do!

Center for Social Initiative and Management, Bangalore

Click on the photo to enlarge.

More photos at SE Wooster's photostream.

Reflections on Global Social Entrepreneurship

Every week we spend three hours at a session hosted by the Center for Social Initiative and Management (CSIM).  This week our own program was featured in the session.  As preparation for this presentation, Professor Moledina had us answer the following four questions.  I answered them for the CSIM session and then revised my answers afterwards based upon insights I gained from our discussion.  Here’s how they turned out.

1. What do you think Global SE is?

• GSE is all about context.  Global = contextual.  This context could be cultural, geographical, socioeconomic, gender, values, etc.  When we come to volunteer at Dream a Dream and EnAble India we need to understand the contexts that these organizations are working in.  Once we understand the contexts we learn how to find solutions that are contextually appropriate. 
• GSE is also all about having a special mindset.  It’s a learning mindset rather than a “I’m going to give you an answer” mindset.  Asking questions.  Observing what’s around us and what’s been done before.  Could something that was successful somewhere else be modified to fit the special context we’re in?  Part of this learning mindset is understanding the ecosystem we are are in.
• Because GSE is all about understanding context and having a learning mindset, it becomes a highly collaborative experience.  In this collaborative experience we are avoiding hierarchy and avoiding arrogance. 
• In the larger scope, global social entrepreneurs envision systems-level change.  I like Bill Draken’s quote about changing the entire fishing industry rather than giving someone fish/teaching them how to fish (I used this in a previous post about Ashoka Fellows).  In order to achieve systems level change, global social entrepreneurs need to think outside of the box.
• The systems level change means that the models for change need to self-sustaining models.  They need to empower those who are experiencing the social problem and make sure that the solution is rooted in the entire community.  When one person or one NGO leaves the positive changes should not disappear.
• Wooster’s GSE program is about trying to actively create change rather than just talk about it.  So much of academics is talking, but sometimes you just can’t understand the full scope of a situation unless you’ve experienced it yourself.  Once we’ve participated in the experiential learning process, then we can start devising solutions.
• Finally, Wooster’s GSE program is about personal growth.  What do I learn about myself?  What do I enjoy working on?  Where do I fit in to help affect change?

2. Why did you enroll in it?

I chose to participate in GSE because I’m interested in social justice.  However, I don’t just want to talk about social justice.  I want to do social justice.  If you received a letter from me in the spring you might remember me mentioning this.  At Wooster we do lots of talking about social problems but not as much action.  I think that action is just as important, especially in an academic setting where you are learning skills and methods to take your forward in your life. 

I also chose to enroll in GSE because I thought it would put me out of my comfort zone.  I’m used to being a volunteer in American NGOs and doing labor that pretty much anybody could do.  In GSE I am completing a very intensive project in an entirely different context.  I wanted to make myself do something new like that. 

3. What was your project?

Sam and I worked at EnAble India which is an NGO that works to train and then find employment for disabled adults.  We are finishing up a report that proposes the creation of a knowledge-sharing network for ten Indian NGOs that work for employment of persons with disabilities (PWD).  By sharing knowledge (including best practices) the hope is that these NGOs can better achieve their own specific goals while also working for the common good.  In order to devise our report, Sam and I did lots of research on effective NGO networks.  We also interviewed a number of potential member NGOs to hear their thoughts on knowledge-sharing and see what knowledge they could provide to other NGOs.

4. How has this project affected how you think about working for social change?

I have learned a lot about how I fit into the social change spectrum while working on this project.  I’ve learned that I do not consider myself a social entrepreneur.  Social entrepreneurs work 24/7 and are usually very intense and extroverted people.  I am not like that.  Maybe I can be a different type of person that works for social change.  Or, maybe I should redefine my notion of “social entrepreneur.”  Nonetheless, I know that I am more of a “hands” worker rather than a “head” worker (which is ironic because I chose to attend a liberal arts college where we pretty much only do head work).  I want to be out in the field carrying out the programs rather than thinking up how to do them.  And I’m okay with being this type of person.  I continue to believe that I want a large part of my life to be working for social change.

Conclusions

There is no right answer to what GSE is.  This is just what I’ve gathered so far from our seminar, this internship, and from talks with people we’ve met along the way.  I have done a lot of personal reflection during this experience and I will continue to reflect even after I get on a plane in one week.  I don’t think that my notion of GSE will just stay as what I’ve written above.  It’s still an incomplete picture.  Like most things in my head, it will change.

Traffic and Approaches to Development

Read a post by Kipaya about development here. 

Lalbagh Botanical Gardens, Bangalore

Cleaning up after Bangalore 10K

Saahas is a social enterprise in Bangalore that is working to solve the city's waste management problems.  They organization is made up of twenty women who do a variety of waste collection and sorting programs around the city.  We learned yesterday that they were responsible for cleaning up the waste generated at the Bangalore 10K that I wrote a post about a few weeks ago.  See photos on facebook of this clean-up effort here.  While it does not justify the waste generation of the event, it is nice to know that an NGO has filled the need to make Bangalore cleaner.

Social Entrepreneurship, Ashoka Fellows, and Where I Fit In

Our program is called Global Social Entrepreneurship.  So, naturally, I should be thinking a lot about social entrepreneurship.  It seems though that the more I learn about social entrepreneurship the less I know about it.  This post will hopefully help me organize some of my knowledge and thoughts about SE.

I’ve learned a fair amount about social entrepreneurship in the context of the Ashoka Foundation.  The Ashoka Foundation was started in 1980 by Bill Drayton and is a platform to provide social entrepreneurs with resources and networking.  For Ashoka, a social entrepreneur is someone who has an innovative idea to solve a social problem with the ability to create systemic change.  Social entrepreneurs are very creative people who devote their whole self to making social change a reality (this is where the entrepreneurial quality comes in).  There is a quote by Drayton that helped me better understand social entrepreneurs when we were learning about it in our spring seminar.  It was again repeated by a woman from the Ashoka Foundation that we met when we first arrived in Bangalore:

“Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or to teach how to fish.  They will not stop until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.”

The Ashoka Foundation elects leading social entrepreneurs to become Ashoka Fellows via a rigorous selection process.  There are over 350 Ashoka Fellows in India alone.  Shanti Raghavan, the founder of EnAble India, is the Ashoka Fellow that I have personally worked most closely with.  She started EnAble India in 1999 after witnessing the difficulties her brother (who is visually impaired) had when trying to find employment despite having great qualifications.  This was a social problem that she wanted to change.  Her innovative idea was to start providing training for persons with disabilities that matched what was needed by the employers. 

At EnAble India, candidates (the people with disabilities) are registered and then an analysis is done to see what type of job would best suit the candidate.  The candidate then receives the proper training for the job and EnAble helps place them with an employer.  Moreover, EnAble visits the employers themselves to come up with “workplace solutions” that will make that company accessible for someone with a disability.  A workplace solution could be something as simple as screen reading technology for someone who is visually impaired.  Once a disabled person gains employment, EnAble’s job is not complete.  They continue with post-placement reviews.  EnAble also does trainings with employers to so that workers in the company can understand how to work with a disabled person.

EnAble India trains its candidates very well.  When a person with a disability is placed into a company by EnAble India, they become a change agent.  This is where Shanti’s ideas begin to create systemic change.  Employers see that a disabled person can do excellent work and they then begin to want to hire PWD just because of their skills, not necessarily to fill quotas.  This starts a process where disabled people can have more than just employment.  They can have economic independence.  They can have dignity because they enjoy their work and their work is valued by others.  They can have a livelihood.  They can begin to teach people that disability is just one part of a larger diversity of human beings.

Talking with Shanti in meetings has been very inspiring for me.  She is truly driven by her vision of dignity for all persons with disabilities.  She has countless ideas about how to work on these social problems and she is constantly networking and partnering with others to work for social change.  Working with Shanti and learning about her path with EnAble India has really shown me the power of someone who is a social entrepreneur.  It is great to see that people like her have become Ashoka Fellows.  (And, as someone who was brought up with an empowering all-girls high school education, it is great to see that a large number of Ashoka Fellows are women.)

Since I’ve arrived in Bangalore I have been thinking a lot about where I fit in in terms of social entrepreneurship.  Not everyone is a social entrepreneur.  I do not consider myself to be one.  If you have read any of my blog posts you know that I am passionate about working for systemic change.  However, I don’t have any innovative ideas to a social problem and I don’t have the entrepreneurial skill set like social entrepreneurs do to create the systemic change.  Or at least I don’t have these things right now.  So is social entrepreneurship the only way to create systemic change?  What can I do in terms of helping to create the systemic change?  I reflect on it every day.  I don’t have any answers yet, nor do I think I will by the time I leave India.  But that doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about it.

About Food and Livelihoods, by Sarah

Check out Sarah's post on the Global SE blog to hear her thoughts on our Russel Market experience last weekend along with her experience in general in India.  Sarah, a rising Wooster senior, is a great addition to the GSE team.  She and Kipaya are working with Dream a Dream, an NGO that helps teach life skills to underprivileged children in Bangalore.

Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement in Rural Karnataka

This past Thursday and Friday the GSE Team took a trip to rural Karnataka to see the work of the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM).  SVYM is an organization that focuses on development with three areas of focus: health, education, and community development.  They began in the 1980’s after a group of young medical students in Mysore wanted to make a positive impact and improve the lives of the poor that they saw around them.  Today, SVYM runs countless projects, mostly in the state of Karnataka, to create community-driven empowerment and a better civil society.

On our visit we got to tour two hospitals and two schools, some of which were in very rural areas.  These institutions cater to rural peoples as well as tribal groups who have traditionally been marginalized members of society.  SVYM receives special government funding to make healthcare and education affordable for tribal peoples.  However, as SVYM staff noted, it is often difficult to get tribal persons to come receive medical care at the hospital or to attend school because of a number of cultural reasons.  This includes a tradition of needing children to stay at home to help with work, having to travel far distances from home, and having parents who have never attended school.

School artwork made from waste materials.

Sarah (the cook of the group) in the kitchen at one of the schools, frying up some onions and garlic.

Sam, Sarah, Kipaya, and I really enjoyed meeting all of the kids at the schools.  They loved taking photos with us and asking us “What is your name?”  This was the major highlight for most of the team.  Of course a major highlight for me was getting to see the “sanitation park” at one of the hospitals where all of the different toilets are displayed that can be purchased by villages (perhaps I should thank my father for this interest in toilets).

Squat toilet at sanitation park, along with a list of pricings.

In addition to the hospitals and schools, we visited the Vivekananda Institute for Leadership Development in Mysore.  Here, people receive training to work on various SVYM projects.  There is also a very cool graduate program in Development Management (MDM).  It was very inspiring to meet the students in the programs and see students like us who were very passionate about social change, development, and sustainability.  The students were full of energy as they told us about their final research projects and what they hoped to do after graduation.

One of the greatest parts of the trip for me (perhaps my most favorite) was the agrarian landscape as we travelled out of the city and into rural village life.  I wish I could have visited a farm to see the operations up close, but even from afar it was fantastic to get to see small-scale agriculture in action.  The photos don’t do it justice.  Lots of people working with their hands or directing a team of cattle in very small fields was a typical scene in the areas we traveled.  There were definitely no John Deers the size of a house out in Sargur or Hosahalli!  It was so calming and at the same time uplifting for me.  I would have loved to go join the farmers in their fields.  I'm sure they have lots of wisdom to share.

A stop at Mysore Palace on the way home.

Is there urban ag in Bangalore?

One of my biggest passions is agriculture.  Recently I have been most interested in urban agriculture after I spent last summer working on farms in Cleveland with a cool program called Green Corps.  I even hope to write my Junior and Senior Independent Study projects at Wooster on urban agriculture.  That's why of course I am putting my feelers out for urban ag in Bangalore while I am here.

I found a really cool looking urban agriculture site in a semi-urban area outside of Bangalore.  I have contacted the organizers and hope to arrange a visit with them.  The farms are located in Magadi and are run in part by the Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security.  A project description can be found here. 

A view of Magadi.

 

 

Land use in Magadi (you might want to click on the image to view it in a larger form).  About half of the land is used to grow food.  What if Wooster or Portland could be like this?

So far it has been hard to see what type of farming or gardening is going on in the city itself.  Bangalore is growing so quickly that most of the space is used.  Some vacant lots, however, present potential locations for growing in the urban setting.  Still, the number of vacant lots here cannot even come close to what I've seen in Detroit or Cleveland.

If I am able to arrange a visit to Magadi or meet with the organizers I will be sure to post an update.

Russel Market 2011.06.12 Sunday