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Published: February 4th 2009
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It’s been just over five months now, time enough to watch my own ideology shift considerably. No doubt my world view has been rifted and shaken. And in this rural setting, it's sometimes difficult to gage my current scope of the world. It's interesting to think about where my mind would be if I were back in the states. Maybe I would be tracking how prices have changed or worrying about the people I knew whose jobs had been lost. But then again maybe I would be sitting around pretending life was no different than before the market crash. So here are a couple of things I tend to think about quite a bit, of which would be likely outliers on my American radar.
Caste and Class: It is a contentious and concerning issue of daily contemplation. Not only does caste assign different levels of respect, it dictates what you eat and, often times, how far along the food chain you lie. Class can be just as vicious, sending people into an identity whirlwind when their economic reality fails to live up to the title they were born into. Back to the states, I don’t think I really understood or
collecting firewood
you will find people of all ages collecting and carrying stacks of wood atop their heads. they will use it to cook and keep warm on cool evenings. (to be even more honest) was truly concerned about the adversities minorities and those in economically difficult situations really do face. My understanding of their situation is in certain respects unachievable. Even so, I wish to gain a better grasp on their struggle.
Climate Change: Drought and drought mitigation. Rajasthan has become a global hot-spot for climate change research because it has already begun to see the effects of it more intensely than other parts of the world. Living in the land of 10,000 lakes, how could drought seem real?
Agriculture: Organic is what is practiced, not on behalf of a marketing sceme or eco-litigation, but because that’s how it has always been done. I think I could probably count on one hand the amount of times I’ve been out to a farm in the U.S. My memory tells me they look very different than the ones here.
Gender and The Color of Our Skin: In Rajasthan it seems that there are only two relationships allowed between men and women—married and kin. Though I am a woman, being foreign gives me unique status. Obviously white privileged is a huge issue in many parts of the world (especially
in the US) Traveling outside the US in this context has allowed me to feel first hand how the Western superiority complex and white privilege play out.
Necessity: Surely I had understood that America takes consumerism and that which is material to the extreme. Nope. To be precise, I think it was something I was just beginning to understand but had not quite grasped before coming here. Like a lot of things.
Lastly I want to write that my perspective did (and still does) powerfully reflect the class and environment in which I grew up in. It pains me to think that it has taken me this long to go from thinking this, to actually feeling and believing it as truth. This, and so much more, I owe to India.
On NGOs: Like many other things, my thoughts on NGOs and what they do (or claim to do) for the community are many and varied. My independent research project which I am currently involved in has to do with evaluating the effectiveness of the current organizational structure within my NGO. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Social Accounting, but that’s what I’m doing, in combination
camel laps water
even camels have to drink once in w while with a more in depth analysis of the interpersonal dynamics affecting the organization. Basically, Social Accounting is measuring the social, environmental and economical impact that an organization has on its target area and beneficiaries. So instead of counting revenues and expenses, we are investigating ways we can quantitatively and qualitatively measure the degree to which our project objectives are successfully being met, as well as how the overall organization is viewed by its stakeholders.
I must say I’m really excited about the project. I have been provided with a tone of knowledge and guidance from a current funder and consultant for Jagran who works as a Social Accountant in Scotland for CBS network, and organization that channels funds from outside sources and links them to development programs they feel are of substantial quality. I find it ironic that being away from college has lead me to a place where I regularly and conveniently run into people who become my own personal professors. Learning, learning, learning I am.
NGOs here are so vast in size, purpose, and scope that it would be impossible for me generalize what I think of it all. One prevalent issue is over the degree to which
axe men
so maybe not quite men, nevertheless they work like everyone else an organization chooses to formalize itself. To do this, it must decide how it wishes to balance its interpersonal relationships over efficiency. As I have heard from people working at big NGOs here, they get so bogged down with report writing and institutional protocol, that the organization itself becomes more of a corporate enterprise than collection of individuals working together for the betterment of society. Then there areother NGOs, however, whose informality becomes a problem. Reports and other necessary documentation get pushed aside, and politics begin to reign over formerly established protocol. That being said, the employees of these smaller NGOs tend to have greater incentive to get their work done when given the flexibility to do it far away from strict schedules and as they like. So this is what I intend to look at; formality and informality... what is the optimal working balancefor Jagran? Let us see.
I will end with one last thing I've been chewing on: Will these things called NGOs be around forever? If so, what work will they be doing? What types of organizations should be supported? What should their structure be? Funding? Where does it come from and what implications does this have?
farmer's shoes
these are the shoes you will find on the feet of every farmer. they sort of remind me of low-top cowboy boots
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