Experience of adapting in rural India, and developing a new project of my choice - Cora

The post-adaptation phase at ViKAAS Centre, Harike

The intensity things are lived with here in Harike speed up the adaptation process, making one feel an integrated part of the community in no time. There are still of course some aspects of life here that are almost impossible to adapt to, but that, one can learn to endure with a touch of patience. Take for example the thousand mosquito bites at night (which are then replaced by intruding flies during the day) - you will never adapt to these little guys, but you will gradually pay less and less attention to them. 

Once the adaptation phase comes to an end, the real Vikaas (meaning development in Hindi) work begins. The novelty of being one of the only foreigners in a rural village wears out pretty quickly and locals slowly start treating you like one of them – this means losing the luxury of being treated like some prestigious princess from a faraway land, but it also means gaining people’s trust and respect; vital if you are attempting to reshape long-standing dynamics and mentalities.

When I first arrived in Harike, I knew I would be designing and implementing a project in what they refer to as Women Empowerment. However, I was unsure as to how I, a women from Europe with its culture of equality and opportunity, could ever be able to empower women who knew the hardships of life more than I could possibly imagine and who had become thick-skinned to battle through the daily oppressions they faced. I had a vague idea of the various ways women were increasingly being empowered around the world (micro-finance projects, language and IT skills, practical skills development etc.) but I needed to find something that not only the women in the community would benefit from, but that I would also feel capable of carrying out. The first thing I had to decide was whether I would be working with adult women or concentrating more on girls and teenagers. Considering my stay in Harike was only three months I decided that whatever project I did would have a longer lasting effect on the younger generation. 

I wanted to design a project that encompassed as many aspects of EduCARE’s holistic SHEEE* approach as possible. I was adamant to start an innovative project that would eventually be community-led, run by the very same participants. The moment I became aware of the lack of opportunities for girls to practice team sports outside of school, I didn’t have to think any further - I was going to start the first Girls Sports Club in Harike! Sports is the perfect vehicle towards empowerment since it fosters confidence, self-worth, team-work and endless skills to improve the quality of life of a woman.

*SHEEE (Social, Health, Economy, Education and Environment)  

All the motivation, the dreams and aspirations were there and of course a bag filled with optimism (either genuine or forced). However, the less romantic side of me also knew that I had to be realistic and that it was very probable that my project would flop or not even take off.  To avoid disappointment in this unpredictable field of development, I told myself that as long as I tried my best I would be happy with the project results, regardless of whether they were a success or not.   I had already had two very positive GSC (Girls Sports Club) sessions at the local government school, but the success of the project was going to be judged the following week when the sessions were to be moved from government school to our Vikaas centre. The girls were not going to be forced to attend the sessions by teachers anymore and it was going to be entirely up to them whether they wanted to show up or not.  Aware of the difficulty in gathering a specific group of people, in a specific place at a specific time I spent the whole preceding week reminding the girls where and when to attend the session, never forgetting to transmit enthusiasm and motivation.

 The day of that initial session at our ViKAAS centre arrived and I was bouncing with excitement and utter dread - what if no one showed up? What if my selling skills were so terrible that I hadn’t even managed to convince a group of girls to attend a weekly sports session?  After spending two hours setting up the room and the workshop (we were going to discuss the importance of breathing correctly) I went outside the office and began pacing up and down, hoping that the afternoon would run smoothly.  I checked my phone and felt a wave of sadness when I saw that it was 16:10 and no one had shown up. “It’s fine if no one shows up” I told myself “it’s all part of the experience” but deep down I was gutted. As soon as I gloomily turned around to go back into the office I heard my name being shouted from behind. I turned around and about 10 overly excited girls started running in my direction. I am not exaggerating when I say that my heart was filled with extreme happiness when I saw that they were all wearing sports gear and all had a bottle of water in their hand (just as I had told them). I began the session with some breathing exercises and stretching and still, girls continued to show up. Twenty minutes into the session and I was in charge of a class of 20 girls, my project was working after all. The session was extremely successful, so much so that the number of girls was increased to 35 the following week. This made me realise that once you’ve gained community interest and collaboration, the hard part of a project is done.

Cora Craigmile 

Project Manager,

Girls Sports Club

Women Empowerment

Harike, India

Aug 2017

One of the highlights of my internship in India was visiting Amritsar.

We got up at 3 AM on Wednesday to get to Dharamsala to get our bus at 5 AM. It’s about a 6 hour ride but on a government bus, which means its literally like rows of benches and super crowded. Amritsar itself is just a typical busy, dirty, dusty and underwhelming Indian city but it’s also home to the Golden Temple, the holiest site in Sikhism, the religion of most Punjabis. The Golden Temple is AMAZING and so beautiful, its like stepping into another world when you get inside the complex. You approach the complex and everything becomes marble and immaculately clean (weird) and you have to check your shoes and socks (they aren’t allowed inside the complex even inside a bag) and cover your head (men too) and then you walk through this shallow pool of water to wash your feet and then into the temple complex.

It’s full of people 24 hours a day but it’s also so peaceful and quiet, except the hushed sounds of lots of silent people milling around and praying and the gurus inside the temple singing/chanting prayers over this loudspeaker. I spent hours just sitting on the marble on the edge of the water (which is holy water and the men bathe in it in their underwear and the women can too but they have to go in this covered section). Then you can get into the line to go into the temple itself and you get inside and it’s so crazy and ornate (also warm, I cannot even imagine what it’s like in there in the summer) and when you get out of the temple they spoon a scoop of this stuff that looks kind of like dark brown oatmeal into your hand and it tastes like sugary whole wheat flour mush and you’re supposed to eat it and then rub the oil from it on your face. 

We stayed there for free, they have what are called “niwas” which are giant hostels essentially that are free for Golden Temple visitors. You just walk into this giant courtyard just next to the temple complex and if you’re foreign this really nice Sikh guy comes over and brings you to the “foreigners room” which is basically a small section of the niwas that is a bit more private. There’s one big room with a bunch of cots and then four or five smaller rooms off it that each have three cots in them, we stayed in one of the smaller rooms (challenging to get four people onto three cots). There’s a bathroom with a tap and sink and bucket to shower in the big room but then for the toilets you go out into the courtyard and there two-story toilet “halls” with the most toilet stalls I have ever seen in one place. The whole place is full of giant rooms with cots and there are so many people that at night the whole courtyard is full of people just sleeping on blankets on the ground

The most amazing part of all of this is the Langar (which just means food in Punjabi) hall. You enter through the temple complex and you walk through another foot pool and then you walk up and a guy hands you a plate and then another guy hands you a spoon and then another one a bowl and then you shuffle into this enormous room with really long thin mats lined up in rows and you sit down on the mat and then these guys come around with baskets of fresh chapati, buckets of dal (lentils) and subjee (Indian mixed vegetables) sometimes rice and then either something similar to what they give you when you leave the temple or like a sweet rice pudding type thing. It’s totally free, and you just eat as much as you want and then take the plate down and hand it to someone and they pass it along this assembly line to like 100 people who are doing dishes. And next to that there are 100 people cooking in these absolutely enormous vats. Apparently something like 40,000 pilgrims eat there a day. I loved it, the food was incredible - I ate every meal there.

The whole temple, niwas, langar experience was absolutely incredible, I loved it so much.

Part of Naddi's team in the Golden Temple

Kyla Korvne - USA

Women's empowerment Project Manager/ Centre Coordinator in Naddi

Golden Temple @ Amritsar

The Golden Temple is only 2 hours away, so it´s frequently visited by our interns: