Hello EduCARE....I am very glad to work with EduCARE-India. I have learned many things here. I was always improving myself. This was a really good platform for me. I feel proud to has been part of EduCARE-India.This has been my second time working with EduCARE-India and there are many things that popped into my head when i`m thinking about my first month in RAIT.
Writing a blog post can be really difficult for me. Where could I start from? Ordering my thoughts, I would focus my feeling on the arrival to the Rait Center and the engagement with the community, especially building relationship with the kids of the village as well as with the shopkeepers/ and trash holder.
I immediately fell in love with Himachal Pradesh and I mean it, it`s such a beautiful place! I definitely enjoyed my job as project manager for Swash Project. I still remember my first day meeting with the shopkeepers and local gov. Grampanchayat members. At that time I did not understand how could I deal with them, but after few weeks I found my way.
Spending time with the kids in Fun Club was extremely funny! We did different activities and games every Sunday in Rait Gov. School. We also had the possibility to prepare some educational activities related to the Waste Management and Sanitation. The kids really liked it!
I would like to show you some photos representing the path I follow during my EduCARE India experience:
At the beginning of my internship I started to work with Kevin the SWASH Coordinator. We had a meeting with the Sitaram. We had a great conversation about the Swash project and solid waste management system: how can they separate the trash, how many were the different kind of trash.....etc.
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SWASH meeting in Mcleod Ganj with Sitaram son
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Then me together with Sylvia,Madhu,Craig and Tom went to meet the local Government and all members of the Grampanchayat as well as the local community. It was our first step to try to engage the community and it was very successful.
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Meeting with local Government Grampanchayt in BDO Office
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Here you can see the trash collected form the shopkeepers and sold to the trash holder. He`s a very good person, always supportive and kind with us. We built a very good relationship with him.
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| Selling our trash in Rait |
The Fun club with the kids is amazing! They are doing every time something funny with us. The girls are always very happy to see us in Girls Club. We also found out that involving the mothers in the Girls Club in our office has been very beneficial in maintaining the girls’ interests and focus. Plus, it is also a good platform to engage with the kids’ mothers and the families overall increasing EduCARE’s visibility.
In these last weeks kids made artistic boxes with us. They decorated the boxes, they cut the important things they find in the magazines and then they put inside the boxes. It was a very successful and amazing things...I enjoyed every moment!
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| Our charming kids at the Fun Club and Girls Club |
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| Our Girls Club activities |
This is very sad moment for me because I am going back home in Varanasi. I have to leave all the Rait team and the community. I will miss everybody and our amazing house. I will try to express my feelings for my good friends writing down a few words:
Forever is a very long time. How is it that people can talk so casually about a concept that we cannot even wrap our minds around? Sometimes we have a friend and we sense that our souls are very closely connected. We know that the connection is above time and space. We know that wherever we are in our lives we will always remain friends. Even if we do not see each other for years we are able to pick up right where we left off. This is what people mean when they say friends forever.
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| Friends Forever 2015-2016 THANK YOU EduCARE India, THANK YOU RAIT |
Pooja Gautam
SWASH Project Manager
Rait, India
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