SAATH asked me to do research on the quality of the anganwadi’s in Juhapura, which I immediately found an intriguing and motivating research topic. After a literature study in the Netherlands I came to Ahmedabad and had a warm and welcoming meet with SAATH. I started off with an extensive introduction of the organization, understanding their line of thought and their means of working. Soon I realized that the theoretical knowledge that I had granted to be so important had completely different meaning in practice. Moreover, certain features of Ahmedabad and Juhapura in specific, made some of the literature I had read unsuitable. When finalizing my internship, the art will be in combining the knowledge that I have gained from theory and the experiences I have in the field.

The first experiences with Juhapura were enchanting for me; the colourful streets of markets with all various products and the endless kindness of the people made me even more motivated to start with the research. After five weeks I started with conducting the actual interviews, which demanded some patience and innovative thinking. All together I have already had the experience I wanted; learn about the practical side of development and see that theoretical knowledge is not everything. Currently I am conducting the final interviews with the workers of the anganwadi’s, and many more interviews need to be done with the parents to formulate a complete overview. As I am only halfway my internship, I hope I can gather much more information and formulate a useful report for SAATH. I will let you know when I’m finished with this research!

Warm regards, Elle

I worked with one of Saath’s rural initiatives, RWeaves. Through this initiative, Saath promotes traditional Tangaliya and Patola workers, through microfinance loans, procurement assistance and through facilitating sales in Ahmedabad and other cities of India. My internship consisted of working on the pricing of RWeaves products, in order to determine the optimum price, in accordance with fair trade standards. In my opinion, RWeaves is an excellent programme that helps not just sustain but enhance the livelihoods of the rural artisan of Northern Gujarat. Saath is doing its part in reviving the heritage and the vision of cottage industries that Mahatma Gandhi had.

Interning at Saath was an excellent experience. Although Saath was my first formal internship, I didn’t really feel out of place. The entire process helped me learn not just a bunch of stuff that I couldn’t read about, in a book, but more importantly, how to learn on the go. I learnt how to work in a group, and individually. I learnt what it feels like to be yelled at (no names mentioned!), and what appreciation feels like. The people I met at Saath, including some of the artisans, were really warm individuals who excelled in their own spheres. I really have to mention Kiranbhai, who was more patient with my requests than required, and Narsinhbhai of Kataria, Limbdi, whose Patola Sari’s were products of exemplary skill and craftsmanship.

Overall, I have to say my learning experience at Saath was fun, exciting, frustrating, and eye opening.

For one and half month, I worked as an intern at Saath in the Research, Documentation and Communication (RDC) Cell. I am glad to say that every moment spent at Saath had been a lifetime experience for me!

When I was searching for NGOs on internet, I came across many which worked for children, women or disabled in Ahmedabad. But I was searching for an NGO that worked at a larger scale and focused not only at a particular sector of the society but on the familiy and society as a whole. And then I came across Saath! When I visited their profile, I was astonished to see the phenomenal work done by Saath. It was mind boggling to see a grass root level NGO like Saath working in multiple sectors and striving to make society a better place to live in.

I was amazed to see the structure and working of Saath. Their USP is that they not only focus on women or children but on families and society as a whole. The organization is doing great job in terms of upliftment of the poor, underprivileged people in urban and rural areas. According to me, the best part about Saath is that they have a 360 degree approach towards improving the lives of the poor. They offer multiple services like provision of affordable housing, education, employability, awareness about child rights, training centers for employment, Urban Resource centers etc. You name it and they have it!

This internship gave me a golden opportunity to showcase my talent, learn new skills and improve upon the existing skills. It gave me a chance to lend my helping hand towards the society and contribute towards improving its future.

The best part of my internship was when I went to different villages for the case studies and also when I voluntarily spent time with the children in Balghars. I can never forget the smile on their innocent faces when I distributed stationery and food packets among them.

Shalini conducting a case-study (see last monday's post)

This internship not only helped me learn new things at the RDC Cell but also taught me important aspects of life. It gave me hands on practical experience about the society and its shortcomings. Personally I relished my internship throughout at Saath and enjoyed every part of my work, be it official documentation work or on field work. It gave me a great sense of satisfaction that Saath gave me a platform wherein I was able to contribute my bit towards the society I live in. It was a brilliant experience for me.

I extend my sincere thanks to each and everyone I worked with at Saath. Working with you all at Saath was an incredibly splendid experience!

On the occasion of International Child Against Labour Day i.e. 13 June 2011, I planned to celebrate the forthcoming week as CHILD AGAINST LABOUR WEEK 2011 (13-17 June 2011) by creating fun filled workshops for children at all the 7 Child Friendly Spaces. This week was themed as family security, called “GIVE A HUG” in which I tried to create activities focused on importance of family and parental love. Along with a fellow intern Trishla Jhaveri (Symbiosis, Pune), we taught poems and songs; origami, told stories and showed movies related to the importance of parental support and their society around them. The children have faced lot of parental pressure in the past, with household work, child labour, often borne to shouting and beatings. We tried to make them understand that inspite of their parents being harsh and even rude at times they dearly love them and care for their welfare. They need to value that their parents try to create a secure life for them. The children were also told that children like us, from better neighbourhoods, face the same problems and we need not hate our parents for their scolding because they love us nevertheless and only shout at us for our betterment.

In “Give a Hug” initiative the children were asked to go home and hug their parents and tell how much they loved them. We even took feedback from the children, and they felt a change in their parents’ behaviour that day, they felt closer to them than ever before. We taught a self composed Hindi poem to illustrate the parents love, affection and empathy to which the children could relate to.

The week spent with the children, visiting all the CFS at the construction site as well as slums was very touching. This campaign of Child Against Labour Week allowed me to take a glimpse in the lives of these young child labours that are craving for love and recognition in society. They wish to study further and live better improved lives. I was mesmerized when fellow teachers from CFS Mangalam Residency and Umanglambha called me the following day and told me that the kids miss me and wished I would come back and spend more time with them. There is nothing more beautiful than spreading more smiles in the world. I am really proud of the work SAATH is doing towards these child labours.

I wish you all the best,

Sugandha Deva

English class with teachers of the Balghars (pre-schools)

On the first day of class, we established our goal: to improve communication with visitors to the balghars. We start each class with a chai and a “warm-up” activity, which often includes sharing information about ourselves or some type of physical activity. The class is always a warm and vibrant space, and the eagerness of the teachers to learn is clear with each lesson. Due to our language barrier, I often use drawings  or gestures in teaching, making for an active and frequently comical classroom.

After ten classes together, we have covered a range of English vocabulary and grammar structures, and the class has progressed at an inspiring rate. All of the teachers are now able to carry out a basic conversation, and seek information such as name, country of origin, and other personal information. Each student is also now able to introduce others, which is demonstrated whenever an outsider comes to the classroom and is introduced in English. After ten classes, we have already reached the basics of our goal, and we are now moving forward to different topics.

The teachers are now excited to practice their new conversation skills with visitors to the balghars, who they face trouble in communicating with. Sharing this time with the group of teachers has been an amazing experience for me, and I am certain that I am taking just as much, if not more, from the class. Many of the women have shared their homes with me, both inside and outside of Juhapura, and introduced me to their families and neighbors. As we cover more English in the classroom, we are able to understand and to communicate with each other in more depth.  I am so lucky to find myself surrounded by such positive energy each week, and I look forward to the future classes that we will share together.

(by Catherine McBride – Intern)

1. Does scale always come at the cost of depth in impact?
2. Can social activity be made independent of donor support through income generation from it?
3. Is it really possible to have commercial solutions to social issues?

I used to think hard, however, could never gather enough insights to substantially reach to any conclusion.

This summer, I got an opportunity to rethink over some of these questions. During internship with Saath, there I could observe, feel and see the strive for the answers to the questions that had always puzzled me.

During my stint there, I also realized one of my faults in search for answers.  I always focused on thinking; the right thing of course was, doing, experimenting, inventing and refining. At Saath I saw that the focus is always on doing, trying. And this ability to take a risk of doing things is perhaps the key to find the right answers.

Brooding over issues doesn’t solve them, acting on them can. However this risk taking ability needs to be developed, nurtured and protected to keep it alive in everyday actions. As an intern also the kind of freedom of thought, expression and exploration that I enjoyed at Saath were rare to find in most other organizations.

Time of two and a half months may not help one discover all the answers however, my internship has given me a new line of thinking, acting and initiating. That I believe is rarest possible reward for any work.  If answers to above questions raised on above mentioned lines exist, Saath – as an organization- is perhaps the way to find them and see them in action too.

- Dhruv Joshi, Intern at Saath April- Jun2 2010 from FORE School of Management, New Delhi

A place to have a real internship
In China, the interpretation of internship is to do some simple work or even just cleaning at the workplace. However, to me, SAATH is the place where an intern has the opportunity for a serious internship and can really do something.
I was first impressed by the high working efficiency of SAATH. It only took two days from my interview to when I was informed of the result. Along with me, there were three more Chinese interns working at SAATH. Initially, I thought that we would be delegated just some simple work or even no work in order to have time to get to know about SAATH. But I was wrong. From doing research, resorting information to writing report and reporting to immediate boss, the interns were fully occupied from day one. As to me, I worked for the micro-finance division (MFI) and my working content was mainly about studying on two government organizations and the MFI performance of the NGOs throughout India, collecting related information and writing a report to offer some advice to the application proposal for the external financial assistance. I was really pleased with that but I need to absorb as much information as possible to get the work done. Besides the Internet resource, there were shelves of books in the SAATH office that was open to the staffs and interns. I still remember that every day after work, I took a pile of year books back to have further study and just getting to know how different models are applied in micro-finance took me 3 whole days. But that was worthwhile. One day after I report to my immediate boss, Divyang, he told me that he appreciated my work and to me that was really a great encouragement to inspire me to work even harder. Though what I can contribute to SAATH in my internship is limited, but I have really learnt a lot, at least about micro-finance, from the days working at SAATH, which is such a great organization and wonderful place to have some real internship.

A box of chocolates & a mix of cookies
My first impression about SAATH was that every one in the office was busy with his or her work and every staff performed so professional that no one seemed to be an easy cookie. But it proves that life in SAATH is a box of chocolate and people here are a mix of cookies. Working for SAATH was not all about sitting in the office and facing the computer. Actually you are allowed to have flexible working hours and also can home office. As an intern, I got the chance to visit two local branches of SAATH’s MFI project and attend their monthly branch manager meeting. Though I couldn’t understand what they said at the meeting, but I could tell that these people who worked at the fist front for SAATH are really nice. When we had lunch together, considering that I was not that skilled in eating directly with my hands, they specially gave me a spoon to use. That really touched me. If they care so much when dealing with an intern, no mention how much attention they will pay when they deal with their colleagues and their work.

At the SAATH office, there were also sweet people that made me feel at home. Keren, who I respect a lot, introduced us to SAATH and would always be there whenever I need some help. Divyang, my immediate boss, always gave me encouragement and guidance on my work. Purvi, my dear colleague, always took the trouble to offer me her help. Nitesh, the system manager, was very humorous. He told me to work happily, “if you smile to the computer, it will smile at you!” His enthusiasm and optimistic attitude towards life and work is so impressive. Once,when I got sick, Purvi rode me to a medicine shop, bought me some medicine and sent me home. The other colleagues sent me messages to make sure that I was fine. Though I was sick at that time, but I didn’t feel homesick for that SAATH was just like my home.

Together
I was told by Keren at the first interview that SAATH means together in Gujarati.
SAATH believes and advocates cooperation. So do we Chinese in our Confucian philosophy.
No matter where you are from, who you are, here, in SAATH, we stand for the same thing, work for the same goal.
Together, we make more changes possible.
SAATH, brings us more hopes for tomorrow.

Dedicated to all the SAATHis