So..the time has come to start blogging about India! I am embarking on one of the bigger adventures of my life, to date. I’m going to India for six months to work with a non-profit organization in Bangalore, India.
Excited? Yes! Nervous? Double-yes! If you haven’t guessed from the title of my blog, I’m a Kenyan-Indian currently living in America. I’ve actually never been to India – so this going back to the motherland should make for an interesting experience.
So why am I going to India? (No, I’m not going to vacation – although there’s SO much to see...i’m sure it’d fill six months easily!) Well, I have to do an internship for my MPH (masters in public health) program – pick a country, pick a problem, work on a project, write a policy brief that would inform policies surrounding said-problem in said-country. So, I chose India.
Since I want to work with women/vulnerable children, I sought out organizations that work on the ground to help improve the health of women and children in India.
After negotiating scopes of work with three NGOs, I settled on Population Services International, a Washington DC‐based NGO that works in about 60 countries. They run programs in malaria, reproductive health, child survival, HIV and tuberculosis – all areas of interest to me. In India, they have been in existence since 1988 and I’m told that their teams do some great work on the ground. I’ll be working under the Regional Director in South India as a Program Assistant. The job will be based primarily out of their Bangalore offices, but will also involve travel around the state of Karnataka to oversee projects in rural parts of the state.
So..I leave in mid-July and will be back in January. Currently in the throes of working out some visa issues, getting my travel vaccinations, reading up about India (thanks to my good friend Michelle, who saw it fit to get me a 1000+ pg book on India!) while starting to write my thesis and taking my last class as a masters student in international public health. Yikes! I suppose, I’m partly keeping busy so I don’t have to think too much and freak out even more. Ha!
So…watch this space for stories – from my very first auto-rickshaw ride to checking out the beautiful hill-stations in Southern India on my off-days. From the joys (and pains!) of working in public health in the land of my mother, to the loneliness that’ll undoubtedly set in once the novelty has worn off. Looking forward to it all – the joys, pains and everything in between. Wish me luck!
