The Last Week of Work

During the last week of work, I was all set to write detailed updates every night, and really take advantage of my last week in India to reflect on my work and how it related to SE, and how I could use what I've learned in these last six weeks in the future.  What ended up happening was that my team and I pretty much stayed up until 3am every night trying to finish our final report and presentation.  Turns out, we had a lot of work to do before our project could be presented to the good folks at PremaVidya.  Our report had many different sections, and many of them ended up being pretty long.  Our final project looked quite different from the project we were initially given.  The goals stated in our final project were:

•  To establish a framework that assesses the learning process in PremaVidya-Project 1947 intervention.
• To provide a method for determining factors which improve and impact learning in PV schools.

The framework and method we developed came from a lot of trial and error on our part.  My team had first surmised that we could simply create another survey to get at this information.  We would develop different questions that would hopefully lead to a better understanding of the efficacy of PV interventions.  We went to a couple of 10th standard classrooms, and distributed the survey. After receiving the results from the surveys, we saw that many of the answers were very similar, and almost too idealistic all across the board.  Even after a revised survey was distributed, we received similar answers.  Students in India are culturally conditioned to give answers authority figures want to hear, and will almost never give criticisms.  With this in mind, we realized the surveys were probably not going to work, so we had to change directions.  We developed a framework for a focus group, that PV could use to find the factors within their program that impact learning in students.  Once these factors are found, the quality of PV interventions can be more easily assessed as the organization scales to 500+ schools in the coming year.

Now, not only did we have to write a final report, but we had to put together a presentation (with PowerPoint visual), that a concise version of what was in our report.  Now, I've made a lot of bad PowerPoint presentations in my day, so in order to make a good PowerPoint, we watched this lovely YouTube video, courtesy of Prof. Moledina, and then we (actually, mostly Parisa) put together a good PowerPoint using the guidelines given to us in this short instructional video.

PremaVidya Team Presentation

Judging by the smiles, they liked us! (Hopefully)

Judging by these photos, and by Prof. Moledina's feedback later that afternoon, our presentation went well.  We were late (of course) in starting, and Parisa and I were quite nervous, but everyone seemed very warm and open to what we had to say.  We were even able to answer some tough questions pretty eloquently.  We were all able to speak, we all spoke knowledgeably (woohoo!).  We left the presentation feeling very good, although we still had to finish writing our final report that afternoon.  After our presentation, Akeela and Pretha took us to buy sweets for the entire office, and then they gave us lunch, which was absolutely delicious.  It was food from Andhra Pradesh, a state just a little bit north-east of Karnataka.  It was spicy and delicious, the perfect last lunch!

PremaVidya Presentation Crowd!

PremaVidya GSE Team: Me, Parisa, Navee, Maddy

It was quite a sad and emotional last day.  There were a lot of tears, from everyone.  We exchanged emails, and addresses, and promised to write and keep in touch.  We had invited everyone from the office to the GSE Celebration Dinner on Saturday night, we had a great many office friends attending, so we were all very excited.  Akeela and Pretha took us shopping after work in an area that was just as good as Commercial Street, but much cheaper. We also promised Darsana profusely that we would have the final report ready for her on Saturday before the party.  Unfortunately we weren't able to fulfill that final promise because Maddy had gone to the hospital via ambulance on Friday night.  She was later on diagnosed with not one, but two kidney stones.  I've got to tell you, even in the midst of immense pain, that girl had a smile on her face.  You've got to admire her gumption, that girl is one tough cookie.

Bhavani and Me (in full saree and jewelry)

On Saturday, I couldn't wait for the day to pass so I could get dressed and go to the party!  Many of the girls in our group were going to be wearing sarees, so we actually had to get all wrapped up relatively early around 4pm, because none of us really knew how to tie them ourselves, so we had to hunt down the maids before we left.  They were so nice, and helped us all out, which was a big deal, because tying a saree is a pretty intense process, even if you have help.  I also broke down a couple of days earlier, and bought all this lovely jewelry to go with my saree.  I'm talking armfuls of bangles, giant earrings, and a tikka, which is a piece of jewelry that pins into the part of your hair, and has a nice big jewel at the end.  It looks very nice with a saree.  Many of our office friends were able to make it to the party, which was absolutely amazing!  I was so happy to see them all.  It meant so much to us that they were able to come.  We had a lovely evening eating, drinking, and socializing with everyone in the GSE program, as well as members of all the different organizations we worked with, and many of our friends and supporters in Bangalore, and in the rest of India.  We even had some Wooster alumni coming in to attend this party!

GSE, Friends, and Supporters

So there you have it, my last week in the GSE program.  I can't believe how much I've learned, and how much I've discovered about myself.  Social Entrepreneurship is so much more than a "good idea", and it actually takes a lot of people to make an idea work.  Even if you are a allstar, jack-of-all-trades, super solo entrepreneur, you need to have a network of people to support you.  People put the "social" in social entrepreneurship, whether they are your client base, your team members, or your greater network of partners and investors.  I also learned that I really like being part of the support team.  Seriously, you tell me your entrepreneurial idea, and I will do my best to make you that you have whatever materials you need, and that you get to talk to the right people in order to support you and your endeavors.  I have also

Team PremaVidya Representives :-)

gotten to know so many absolutely AMAZING people in the past six weeks, it's unbelievable!  I cannot quite articulate how much I am going to miss everyone once I am back in the U.S.  (On a side note, I am actually back in the States, and am writing this post in hindsight, and let me tell you, I miss everyone terribly).  So the point being, if you've got something that needs to be done, I'm your girl, and I'm not afraid to learn new skills, and try something I've never done before.  In fact, I welcome all of the new experiences.  Bring it on.

Reflections about Work Culture

Hi guys.  I know this is a long time in coming, and once again I have failed to write posts in a consistent manner, and once again, I will attribute this failure to "lack of time," at which you will roll your eyes at me, sigh, and continue reading (at least, I know some of you will).  I wanted to talk more about the work culture at PremaVidya, and just office culture in general.  The atmosphere and culture of any workspace I feel is an important part of any job.  It can help make a job the BEST JOB IN THE WORLD, or it can make a job REALLY REALLY STINK (*I'm trying to keep this all family friendly).  I had a long talk with Prof. Moledina earlier that last week about my future, and we agreed that the people and the work culture of an organization is deeply important for me.  I never really figured out how much having a supportive community and network meant to me until recently.  I grew up with a very close knit family, the community where I grew up was caring and close, and the community I found at Wooster played an extremely important role in my overall extremely positive experience in college. 

The short six weeks I spent with PremaVidya, and the absolutely amazing and wonderful people I met there pretty much sealed the deal for me.  I know that now, when I'm looking for a job, I will not only have to look for a job, but I will have to look for people and colleagues that I would like to work with as well.  In fact, for me, that may be even more important than finding the "right job".  I know that the project I was assigned at PremaVidya was the sort of thing I never thought I would end up doing, but I learned so much, and had so much fun, the work became enjoyable because I felt supported by the people around me.  This support system included my awesome GSE team (Navee, Parisa, Maddy), our GSE adviser Cathy and the rest of the GSE/Wooster staff (Prof. Moledina, Laura, Prof. McConnell), and everyone at PremaVidya.  I realized how lucky I was when the entire organization held a Pooja (it was interfaith, i was SO pumped!) to support and send good thoughts and messages to Mr. Naresh, the director, who was undergoing treatment for leukemia.  A few days later we found out that he was in remission, which totally confirmed my belief in the power of Positive Thinking.  We had other Poojas later in order to send more good thoughts his way.  When you think about it, how many times do you hear about a workplace that will literally take the morning off just to pray for the health of, and send good thoughts (not to mention blessed bananas) to one of their own?  It warms my heart.  In the future, not matter what I'm doing, whether it be something related to SE, or maybe its the waitress job I'll probably be getting until I find something in my field, as long as the people are great, I think I will be happy.

A rainbow of colorful sarees were worn!  Everyone looks so pretty!

Here we are with the men of the office!

Now, just to shed some light on why I loved working with PremaVidya: we legitimately have lots of fun!  Every afternoon pretty much, we turn on the Bollywood, and several of the office members sing along (which, I would too if I knew the words).  Also, when Darsana found out that Maddy and I had purchased sarees, we decided we would have a "Saree Day" at work, where all the women in the office would dress up.  Interestingly, our Saree Day also happened to fall on the Pooja for Mr. Naresh, which meant that we attracted a lot of attention when we first sat down in the prayer hall.  After the Pooja and after we had lunch we also spent about an hour on the roof taking "snaps" (in American English: pictures).  I felt like I was at Prom again, we took so many different shots.  As you can see from these select photos, we all look amazing.  I can honestly say that while I've been in India, I have not seen a saree that I have not liked.  Additionally, if you don't like any of these sarees you see here, never fear, there is a saree out their for you.  They come in all colors and patterns imaginable.  Shopping for sarees (and fabrics in general) is actually quite overwhelming because you have so many choices.

Quality Team Birthday Bash

Other fun things that happen in our office: birthdays.  Birthdays are super fun in India!  For one thing, if it's your birthday, you much bring in sweets for everyone in the office.  When we brought sweets in for our last day, we had about to buy about 75 sweets, because our office is so large.  We have two office locations, with lots of people working in both places.  So, basically, everyone gets lots of sweets on people's birthday.  On the 4th of July, we had two office birthdays (plus American Independence Day of course).  One of the birthdays was a Quality Team b-day, so naturally we had a department party!  In India, or at least in this case, the birthday boy/girl feeds each of the guests a piece of cake, and each guest feeds the birthday boy/girl a piece of cake.  Then the birthday boy/girl gets cake smeared on his/her face.  It's great, AND you're taking snaps of this the whole time!  OH, and just an FYI, all us interns are wearing our Western clothes at the bequest of our other office members.  They told us they were bored with our Indian clothes, and wanted to see us in our real clothes.  So, we wore our Western shirts and jeans, but let me tell you, it is so much hotter in those clothes than it is in Indian suits.  It is well worth your time to purchase and wear Indian clothes when spending an extended amount of time in country.  You'll just be so much more comfortable, trust me!

Well, that's my post on office/work culture.  I did some reflecting, and shared some fun stories.  I think that was pretty much how I wanted to structure my posts from now on.  I also believe I actually managed to connect this post to SE in a roundabout way.  If this tells me anything, it's that I don't want to be a solo entrepreneur, I want to be a part of a team, a community of people, I want to have some company on this journey.

My Project

One of the integral parts of my even being in India in the first place is the completion of an entrepreneurial project and internship with a social venture organization.  As you all know, I'm working with an organization named PremaVidya, which is a sub-project of the much broader Swami Vivekenanda Youth Movement (SVYM).  Actually, to be even more specific, I am working on another project under PremaVidya called Project 1947.  Project 1947 makes the videos that are distributed to government schools.  The videos correspond with the state curriculum, and are designed to help more students pass the SSLC exam at the end of 10th standard.  In India, this SSLC certificate is extremely important.  It often becomes one's sole identification paper, as not all Indians have a birth certificate.  Without an SSLC certificate, one can't apply for a passport or driver's license, and it becomes extremely hard to find a job.  Many students in government schools drop out before they reach 10th standard, so you can see why this is an important issue to address.  Without the SSLC certificate, these children, who mostly come from impoverished backgrounds to begin with, will probably not be able to escape from a life of poverty.

Actually, the whole GSE class had the wonderful opportunity to meet with PremaVidya's founder, Mr. Naresh Bala, via a Skype interview back in March before we left for India.  We had this meeting before anyone knew which organization they had been assigned to, so everyone was anxiously waiting to meet the man who would potentially be our new boss in India.  It was a very productive and informative meeting.  I learned a lot about the organization from this conversation, and when I found out I was placed at PremaVidya, I was really excited, although I was also intrigued by the Hippocampus Learning Centres, another organization GSE students would be working with.

When we arrived in Bangalore, our first task was to find out where PremaVidya (PV) was located.  Now, I hadn't even been in Bangalore for 24 hours yet, so I was basically walking around in a jet-lagged daze as Parisa asked all the random people on the street how to get to J.P. Nagar, the neighborhood in which PV is located.  Professor Moledina had warned us that it was far away, and if we couldn't find it by 12:30pm, we should turn around and go home.  Well, we found the office by 11:30, and discovered that we only needed to take one bus (G4) south to get to where we needed to go (for more fun bus-related adventures, you can browse back through my older posts).

So when we started work on Monday, we were given a PV orientation.  Mr. Naresh was not well, we were told he was having thyroid problems, so he unfortunately couldn't be there to meet us, but we did have a really interesting orientation.  We talked to members of the Human Resources department, and members of the Field Team.  We even got to visit some PV schools that first day!  We saw two different implementation models of PV intervention.  One was the TASSS model.  The SSS stands for Student Support Services, and the TA is of course, a Teaching Assistant.  In this model, the videos are administered by a TA in a Bangalore school.  Throughout the video, there are questions about the content.  The TA pauses the video, and students answer the question (this technique is called question-pause-answer).  We also saw the iSSS model, which meant that students sit in small groups around several different portable DVD players, and running the videos themselves.  There's an adult monitor in the class to collect doubt slips (student questions), that will be reviewed and answered by a teacher later that day.  One of the goals of Project 1947 is to empower children to take control of their own learning, and to take the fear and authority out of the classroom.  Often, children will be too afraid of the teacher to ask questions when they don't understand something, and therefore they do not learn the material.

Anyway, we spent about a week learning about the video production, and working with the Tech team to create some mock videos of our own.  I put it up the video Navee and I made on a post a while back.  You all should check it out.  Anyway, after that week, we were transferred upstairs to work with the Quality Team.  The Quality Team is an eight person department that gathers and reports on all types of data from all of the 200-something schools with PV intervention.  At this time, we had discovered that Mr. Naresh had been diagnosed with Leukemia.  This was an incredible shock to the organization, and it was definitely apparent that the morale of the office was much lower than it probably normally was.  Suman, who basically does a whole lot of stuff for PV became our big boss, but our immediate supervisor, and the person we answer to is Darsana, the head of the Quality Team.  Darsana is really great, not to mention she's one of the sweetest people I have ever met.  She does however, have extremely high expectations for our group.  We balked at the list of items Darsana wanted us to accomplish.  We were given the broad task of finding out how to retain the quality of intervention, as PV scales rapidly.  Wow.  How do you even begin to tackle a question like that?
 

We count on or daily tea breaks

Us balking at our "to do" list

We have an idea!!

Answer:  It literally took us days (I may argue weeks) to figure how we were going approach this question.  We decided that we simply couldn't address this big of a question in only six weeks.  We could definitely try to pick out a piece of the puzzle and solve that one piece.  Good.  Well, we changed our "puzzle piece" about a million times before finally coming up with the current project we're working on.  Basically, our project entails how to "establish a framework to assess the learning process occurring in PremaVidya video programs.  Our ultimate goal is to develop a methodology that will determine the factors that improve and impact learning" (this quote was taken from the text of the draft of our final report).  We've been doing a lot of research on focus groups, because we think this may be one of the better ways to collect good, nuanced qualitative data that can be used to determine whether PremaVidya intervention improves and impacts learning.  We've run into many difficulties, roadblocks, and setback with this project, but our hope is, at the end of this space, to be able to give PremaVidya a truly useful document that they can incorporate into their scaling process.

To close with a random side note:  if you love PICTURES check out the GSE flickr  and see all sorts of different photos of the GSE and Lilly team out and about!