Leaving India

I always knew that this internship would give me a chance to learn and have new and unique experiences, but I was surprised at what I became to know about the most. The thing I learned about the most while working for EduCARE was in fact, myself. 

Of course, the internship is about community engagement, practicing sustainable development and sharing knowledge with others-but for most of us, it becomes much more than that along the way.

I got to know more about myself than I ever expected. The frustrations, the challenges, the constant nausea and diarrhea brings out parts of you that you don’t like or try to avoid. But in India, when there is no power or water or horrible and unavoidable weather, you sometimes can’t escape these parts of yourself. When this happens, you begin to learn how to adapt or how to react in situations. Then, after time, you begin to realize some parts of yourself that are really great. You realize you are an innovator, most certainly a problem solver and have more ideas, knowledge and definitely patience, than you ever thought you were capable of. 

On a more narrow point, I got to learn specifically about microfinance in the field. Traditional microloans and microsavings is not the only way to conduct microfinance in developing countries. I understood quite quickly that sometimes the most effective ways of doing a project are not the most efficient or traditional ways of approaching ideas and projects. It could not be truer that flexibility is essential and the key to succeeding in any projects attempts. Even while keeping this in mind, you will almost definitely fail at some stage. Of course we are constantly told failure is good and it takes time to accept this but its true. The constantly failing and mistakes is often what gives you inspiration for better ideas or alternative solutions. So what I’d really like to say is thank you. 

Thank you EduCARE for giving me so many opportunities to fail :)

Breanne Jury - Canada

Microfinance Project Manager / REstore Project Coordinator in Paro and Naddi