Halfway Point

Hey Everyone!

With 4 weeks behind me and 4 weeks ahead (including 2 weeks of traveling), I have officially reached the halfway point of my time in India. I can't believe it!

This week I settled into my project and made a lot of progress preparing for my interviews, which I will be conducting this week. I explored guidelines that dictate typical employer practices in India and prepared a set of questions for the interviews that should be helpful in compiling the information for my case studies. Here are a few (less-than-ideal) photos of GRAAM:

One of the other ILRies on this trip, Jack, is doing a project on child labor and kids with disabilities, so this week it's been really interesting to look at our projects as they relate to each other. We've been looking at options for vocational training in Mysore, which seem to be effective. We also have started to realize that parents can be reluctant to keep their kids with disabilities in school or are unable to provide them with sufficient support. Connecting that to my project, I've been able to consider how this contributes to the preparedness of people with disabilities to enter the labor force. Learning about Jack's project continues to remind me that the challenges associated with employing people with disabilities don't always begin when a person is seeking a job.

Outside of work, we continued to explore the city of Mysore and gained more confidence in navigating, interacting with people, and trying more and more street food. We finally had the chance to walk along the lake near the hostel, which is sort of randomly placed but is nice to walk along after a long day in the office. Again, pictures:

The Lake!

Downtown Mysore

Sale on the side of the road

I will be completing my interviews this week! I'm so excited to meet with these companies to learn about their policies and practices, and I'll update later this week to share some of my experiences.

Have a great week!

Abigail

First Week at GRAAM!

Hi!

Again, I can't believe it's been a week since I last posted. Time is moving so fast; I have to keep reminding myself to stop and enjoy this amazing experience.

This week, I started working at the Grassroots Research and Advocacy Movement (GRAAM) and officially got started on my project. On Monday, Arun and David, members of the EDI team, arrived at GRAAM for a few days, and I was grateful for their support, along with that of my mentor, in starting my project.

My project has two parts. The first part, which I am working on now, is compiling profiles of a handful of large companies in India regarding their policies and practices in making their workplaces inclusive of people with disabilities. The second element, which I hope to begin this week, will be completing in-depth case studies with companies to get a deeper sense of how they have succeeded in employing people with disabilities. My goal with these case studies is to develop a framework of strategies, barriers, motivating factors, and other elements of employment.

I'm extremely excited to be able to look at this topic at such a deep level; already I've started to be able to see patterns across companies in their efforts to employ people with disabilities as well as to get a look at government policies in promoting these inclusive workplaces. I am excited for the weeks ahead at GRAAM!

Outside of work, I'm really enjoying getting to know the city of Mysore; spending a lot of time in one place is not an experience I've ever really had while traveling before. This week, we went to Karanji Lake, a beautiful lake surrounded by a huge park, and we also spent a good amount of time just wandering around downtown, something we hadn't had a chance to do yet.

View of Karanji Lake from above. 

Monkeys at the park!

This morning (last thing, I promise) we went to Mysore Palace at 6 am to join in the celebration of National Yoga Day. It was an experience, to say the least. It is now monsoon season, so we definitely got wet. Still, we were there with maybe 4,000 people from all over Mysore and the surrounding areas, doing yoga while the royal family sat on the balcony and watched.

Speaks for itself

Yoga at the palace!!!

It's funny, I think I definitely perceived India as a pretty chaotic place before I came here. I can't say that my perception of that has totally changed, but this morning, there were thousands of people in straight lines, praying in unison and practicing yoga in complete silence. There was little security, little direction, little organization, but it worked. Honestly, it was striking.

Ok, I promised, so I will stop here. Also, I must apologize because I forgot to take pictures of GRAAM...I'll post them next week (this is how I keep my readership up).

Have a great week!

Abigail

Time is Definitely Flying

I'm back!

What a week it's been!! I can't believe my time in Mysore is already 1/3 over, there's still so much to do!!

This week, we finished up classes and had the opportunity to go on a few field visits to see tangible examples of the laws and practices we've been learning about. We also had a little bit of time to venture out into the city, which was great.

On Monday evening, we went to a wedding. It was a great opportunity to see a South Indian wedding and the traditions involved in that. We greeted the bride and groom and then enjoyed an amazing meal, during which we got to speak with a lot of the guests and practice our minimal Kannada skills with a lot of people.

Sarees for the wedding!

Tuesday, we went to Shakti Dhama, a women's rehabilitation center that provides temporary safety for women escaping abuse and provides vocational training for women so that they can exist independently of their families, if they wish. This visit sparked a lot of conversation in the group about women's rights in both India and the U.S, and how policies and efforts in that realm are similar and different; overall it was a really good exercise in comparing ideologies across cultures.

Wednesday we visited the TVS Motor Company, which is the leading two-wheeler manufacturer in India. We were able to see an example of complete compliance with Indian labor laws at this company, which was a great opportunity to understand the laws as they stand and how they've changed over the past few years. At night, one of our professors invited us for dinner at a golf club in Mysore, which was an awesome opportunity to speak with him and other professors at SVYM in a more informal setting.

A picture of delicious food at the Hostel to break up all of the words in this post

We finished classes on Thursday, and on Friday we went to Excelsoft, a software company based here in Mysore. This visit was definitely one of the highlights of the week; we got a sense of the organization's culture and training processes and toured the amazing facilities. Additionally, the HR and training directors answered a lot of my questions about their efforts to hire people with disabilities, especially their efforts to create a more inclusive workforce. They mentioned an organization called EnAble India, that works to provide supplemental training to people with disabilities and assists in job placement; Excelsoft partners with them as a potential employer.  I hope to learn more about this organization and others like it during my project.

Today and tomorrow are free days, and we're enjoying our first real free time in the city by exploring!
Pictures from our wandering:

So much fruit! 

Hot Peppers!

We'll start our projects on Monday...can't wait!


Until next time,
Abigail

The End of Week 1

Hi Again!

Since I last posted on Wednesday, we've done so much I'm not quite sure where to begin. It's been exhausting, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I guess I'll start with Thursday and go from there.

We had another day of classes at SVYM on Thursday. So far, we've learned a lot about the labor and employment situation in India in addition to general information about the social/political/economic situation. I can't believe how much I've learned in just a week, and it's been great to have the opportunity to sit and listen without the pressure of a grade at the end. On Thursday night we watched a dance performance at SVYM, where we got to see performances of traditional dances of both Karnataka and Southern India in general.

On Friday we had the opportunity to see the SVYM field projects, each different but equally interesting and exciting to see. The first we visited was the tribal hospital and school at Saragur. There, we toured the hospital and learned a lot about administration of care and how it relates to the population it serves. I realized I know very little about not only Indian health care but also American....but fortunately we were there with the global health students from Cornell who were more than willing to answer my questions.

Hospital at Saragur

School at Saragur

The next site, the tribal school and teachers training college at Hosahalli, allowed us to learn about the current economic situations of tribal families as we discussed why the children want to receive a quality education. We also got to speak to the girls in the teacher training program, and even planted flowers with them in honor of earth day.
Finally, we visited the tribal hospital at Kenchanahalli, where we learned about ayurvedic, or more traditional, practice of medicine.
So that was a long, but amazing, day.

On Saturday (I'm sorry I promise I'm trying to keep this brief but there's so much to tell!) we had class again. In the afternoon we had a small session with Dr. Balu, the founder of SVYM, and had the chance to ask any questions. This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far, as we got to learn more about SVYM as an organization, the population it serves, and its goals for the future.

Today (Sunday) we went to an elephant camp in the morning and then to a coffee plantation to get a more tangible perspective on the labor standards and issues we've been learning about. In addition to the very nice family who opened their incredibly beautiful house to us, we got a chance to tour the plantation and learn about their workers. It was really interesting, and definitely put our previous lectures into context.

Who doesn't love elephants?

Coffee plantation

We ended the day at the Golden Temple, an active Buddhist monastery. We learned that the monks are from tibet, and that in fact there are 3 large groups of monks from Tibet in Karnataka. It was a really cool place to see.

At the monastery

Inside the Golden Temple

This week we'll finish up classes, including more visits to different places that will hopefully allow us to see more of what we're learning in the actual workplace. Thanks for sticking with me to the end of this post!!

Have a good week,
Abigail

Breathtaking Views (Literally)

Hey there!

Yesterday we visited Shravanabelagola and Belur, two different cities outside of Mysore but still in the state of Karnataka. Both sides were insanely beautiful and interesting. This post will mostly be pictures, but I'll include some of the many, many things we learned.

We started the day at Shravanabelagola, which is a city in Karnataka. It is a pilgrimage location in Jainism, and the statue at the top of the large hill depicts Gommateshvara Bahubali, who is traditionally considered the father of Jainism. 

View from the bottom of the 660 stairs we climbed to reach the top

Panoramic View

Looking out at the amazing view from the top

The statue at Shravanabelgola

After that, we departed for Belur. Here are a few pictures of the towns we passed through on the way there.

Belur is home to the Chennakesava Temple, which is a Hindu Temple. The most impressive element of it is the incredibly detailed exterior, which depicts countless goddesses carved into the soapstone. Again, pictures:

The front of the temple, all carved from one rock.

That's it for now! 

Abigail