An Ambitious Balance
Pulkit Agrawal was an Indicorps 08-09 fellow, based at GDL in Bagar, where he spent time trying to reduce unemployment by encouraging entrepreneurship through business teaching, awareness generation and bespoke consulting. Now back at home in London he reflects on some of the differences in life between then and now. He blogs at www.pulkitindindia.blogspot.com.
It’s been a while since I left GDL but another ex-volunteer who I spoke to over the weekend inspired this post (both the act and the content)…. as we were contemplating the differences between life at GDL and now in London / Toronto we almost decided that simplicity made for happier living; aside from the obvious rhetoric- having a tight group of friends, with few organised social activities, in a small place kept us stimulated and entertained for a year! As much as I believe I have a strong preference for city living, I came to the realization that rural life may actually be more fulfilling… and its to do with ambition; a double-edged sword if ever there was one!
Whilst trying to encourage entrepreneurship as part of my Indicorps project I was regularly anguished at the lack of desire from the people to better themselves. Why did no-one see the opportunities that existed and why did no-one want to put the effort in to change their lifestyle, situation and mindset?! Maybe it was laziness but more fundamental than that was a deep contentment with life that seemed to exist. As long as things didn’t get worse, people were not too bothered about them getting better (although of course people complained, as they seem to do everywhere!). And on some level I was quite impressed at this attitude and sometimes wondered whether trying to encourage growth and ‘development’ was actually leading people on a wild-goose chase! At the time I made peace by deciding that the ambition to pursue something is important as often it can transcend materialism and lead people to pursue peace, understanding and openness..
Yet now when I consider my ambition and that of those I left behind I wonder whether my ambition is actually constructive and positive… Does having too many options lead us to confusion, dissatisfaction and unhappiness? Or do we need a basic level of discontentment to provide us motivation to continue living in pursuit of happiness? Is it worth striving for this ambition when the clear danger of over-ambition is around us to see – whether in the workplace or even in our social lives? How do we balance useful, constructive ambition with dangerous, negative ambition???
Life is Dramatic
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- The Community Leadership Team receives their certificates upon completion of their 8 week course
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- Community Leadership Team members Pankaj Sharma and Ajay Sharma explain the benefits of skills training in the local village of Islampur
Life as a human being is dramatic. It’s dramatic because of choice. As a human being you are given a set number of years to live. Every choice we make, we sacrifice what we don’t do for something we do. Since our time is limited, there are a limited number of choices we can make. Each choice is powerful and has real consequences for our lives and for the lives of those to whom we are connected. As I listened to the personal stories of my community members, I started to appreciate that this is our struggle as human beings: to make the right choices for ourselves without knowing where we are going or when our time will be up. This is the drama in which we must all take part; we must make choices knowing that we know nothing and that each choice could lead us to a better or worse state.
At the start of my fellowship year in Bagar, I felt like I could not connect to my community members on a meaningful level. I felt like I was pretending, instead of actually sharing emotions with them. Our conversations felt empty, because it seemed to me that our exposure was just too different. But now, I empathize with my community because I know that although our circumstances are different, we all make choices to make our lives what we want them to be. This perspective has enabled me to love my community on a real level. Now when I exchange stories with my community members, I love them because in their stories I see our shared human struggle.
This year I started a youth group focused on cultivating leadership called the Community Leadership Team. Last week, in our Community Leadership Team meeting, I asked each of our team members to tell me the dreams they have for their lives and what they are willing to do to make them reality. At first they didn’t understand what I was asking and many team members told me they had never been asked such question(s) before. I then told them I would film each of them saying their dreams and promised that I wouldn’t show it to anyone else.
I called the first team member up to state his dream on camera and he was hesitant to come. No one wanted to be first. But after being filmed for the first time, each of them asked to redo their dream statement at least three or four times. The first take for each team member was short and emotionless. But in the second, third, and fourth take, you could see the ambition in their eyes and hear the pride in their voices. In those moments on camera, I was pushing them to make a choice about their lives and there it was – the drama.
In their articulation of their dreams, there was hope for what could be and sacrifice for the paths they were giving up in the same moment. And that is from where the love comes. Because when I listened to my team member’s dream, he was no longer an Indian farmer’s son from Ratansher and I was no longer an Indian American from L.A. In that moment, he was one human telling another human that amidst this chaos and confusion that is the world, we can make choices to make life what we want it to be. In that moment. our differences melted away. My heart connected with him because I know that I have that courageous irrational hope too. I too believe that my dreams can become reality, that my choices can make life better. It was in that moment that my heart resonated with assurance; yes, the world is ours, we don’t have to be a product of it, we can make the world a product of us.
Starting the Community Leadership Team has given me an avenue to experience the drama of life. The world is created by the choices of human beings. Investing time in people makes me a part of their drama, it makes me a factor in their choices and if I encourage people to discover themselves and make positive choices I can make the world a better place. Through this leadership team, I have learned that investing in people is something about which I am passionate. Investing in people is something I love, I’m addicted to it, and I’m going to create opportunities for myself to invest in people for the rest of my life wherever I go and whatever I do. That is dramatic. And that is life.
Sahil Chaudry, 2009-2010 Indicorps Fellow
Source for Change speaks at TEDxShekhavati
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- Shrot Addresses the Audience in Fatehpur
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- Shobha Sharma relates her career to the audience.
Shrot Katewa, the co-founder and COO of Source for Change recently spoke at TEDxShekhavati in Fatehpur, Rajasthan. Even more exciting is the fact that Shobha Sharma, an SFC Business Process Associate, joined Shrot on stage. Please see them both here:
TED is a global conference which attracts some of the sharpest, best known minds on the planet. TEDxShekhavati, an offshoot of this larger movement, was located in the small town of Fatehpur in the Shekhavati region not far from our home base of Bagar. It attracted over 1,000 local attendees which makes it the largest venue at which Source for Change has been able to present its business and development model. In order to align with the value of elucidating new ideas to the Shekhavati community, all the speeches were conducted in Hindi. Topics ranged from photography, health, women’s empowerment, and of course to rural outsourcing.
The story which led up to TEDxShekhavati and the associated struggles can be read on the link below. It’s written by the organiser, Masarat Daud:
http://tedchris.posterous.com/private/HgICHbwrhA
One of the most inspiring bits of feedback at the end of the event was “You have raised the bar for all the girls. Now, the women community is very inspired and parents will educate their girls.”
We hope many such similar events will occur all over the world!
Happy Holi!
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- The team is up early to celebrate Holi.
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- Rang rang mere rang rang mein!
The GDL Team celebrated Holi or होली in Bagar this past Monday. We enjoyed visiting friends in the community, throwing colored powder or rang at each other, eating sweets, and watching Holika being burned.
Please learn more about Holi here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holi
Bagar Employment Institute and Source for Change speak to BITS Pilani students
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- Kaushal Rajoriya speaks passionately about employment and employability issues in rural India
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- The BEI Community Leadership Team answers a question from the student audience
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- The BEI Community Leadership Team as they prepare to depart the BITS Pilani Campus
A few of us at GDL were asked to speak on development at the grassroots level at BITS Pilani on Sunday February 7th. The Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership hosted an Entrepreneurship week and our panel discussion was one of the events. Fortunately we were also able to bring BEI’s Community Leadership team, a nine member team comprised of young leaders from Bagar and the surrounding villages, who had the chance to share their ideas on how to build trust with communities for the purpose of development. Above are a few pictures from the event. The people in the panel are Sahil Chaudry, Vivake Prasad, and Kaushal Rajoriya of the Bagar Employment Institute, and Karthik Raman of Source for Change. The guys in the uniforms are the BEI Community Leadership Team. It was a really great experience for the students who wanted to learn more about social enterprise and for the panelists who were able to reaffirm their commitment to development using business methodologies.
Source for Change Completes Web Research / Data Entry Work for US-based Real Estate Firm
BAGAR, RAJASTHAN, INDIA (24 December 2009) – Source for Change (SFC), a company established through the Ajay G. Piramal Foundation, completes the 17th IT-based project in the company’s history. The most recent project was for UrboCorp, a real estate firm based in Houston, Texas, USA. The client needed comprehensive research from multiple websites regarding 1800 acres of residential properties located in Houston, Texas to be compiled into a central informational database.
“We were extremely excited to execute on a project that required detailed web research. As always, we applied our rigorous quality checking procedures and delivered a high quality product to the client.” says Shrot Katewa, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Source for Change.
SFC saved UrboCorp hundreds of hours allowing the company to focus on its core competencies. According to Mr. Tom McCasland, the owner of UrboCorp, his company benefited financially due to the reduced cost of the project. A similar project completed in a major Indian metro costs 30-40% more. Mr. McCasland was pleasantly surprised by both the quality and the cost of the project completed by Source for Change. The project began on October 6, 2009 and the final product was delivered ahead of schedule on November 26, 2009.
“The quality of the final product, the professionalism of the staff, and the rapid completion of the project all exceeded my most optimistic expectations,” says Mr. McCasland. “Because UrboCorp is a startup company with limited staff, Source for Change provided the perfect partner for completing a large web-based data entry project that was crucial to the growth of my company. Working with Source for Change and the women that it employs in rural India has reinforced my deeply held belief that doing well and doing good are not mutually exclusive concepts for businesses with vision, creativity and a social conscious.”
Source for Change is a solutions provider for business process services with a strong emphasis on quality which is creating tremendous efficiency gains for businesses. Now in its second year of operation, SFC offers its clients high quality outsourcing solutions with a competitive cost advantage by unifying three processes: people, quality, and innovation. SFC has completed 17 projects for 9 clients. Most clients have been from India, but UrboCorp is the fourth foreign client. Previously, The University of Maryland (USA), University of California, Los Angeles (USA), and Reel Colour Studios (UK) have all benefited from Source for Change’s industry leading quality assurance practices.
Source for Change, incubated by the Ajay G. Piramal Foundation, has its center in Bagar, Rajasthan. SFC works alongside the women of rural India in delivering the highest level of quality to our global clients while creating opportunities for educated women to learn new skills and develop their professional abilities. Providing employment opportunities for women is a way of tapping dormant talent, as there is much potential but few opportunities for professional women in rural areas. From thorough IT training to efficient project delivery, our business model operates on competitive cost and high quality while creating social impact.
BEI VOICE LAB
The Voice Lab has become operational at BEI center in Bagar.It is an attempt to provide platform for students in rural areas to communicate in English using technology, listen to pre recorded matter to improve their listening skills.Interact with the system in Q&A format to enhance their interview preparation skills, it also has interactive grammar learning features with vocabulary and accent improvement aid.
THE BAGAR PARADOX
BEI was established with a single point focus of providing quality training to rural youth to bridge the gap between the urban and non urban students. The training would empower them to snatch a job in fighting situations. In the last year or so we have opportunities of delight when a student or two of our institute managed to grab a job at uban elite centres like LIFESTYLE and others. But this year the delight and difficulty is different. Not one but two of our students were offered a job at this place but they refused citing the salary was too little . This offer was finally taken by a student who was not earlier selected and is working there right now. The challenge that now appears is what is the scale that as an institute we should be looking for our students. Bagar being , socially and educationally rich compared to other rural area presents a paradox. The not rich are influenced by the rich and the migrant population in the middle east so a job offer of 5000 or so seems petite. On the other hand there are people who are ready to work even for 2000 thousand or less. The challenge here is to how to develope a strategy that caters to all. Otherwise in future the refusal of students will dent our relationship that we have built with potential employers
New initiative at GDL: Developing Entrepreneurship
Dear GDL Blog readers,
This is my first entry (4 months into my time here!) so I should introduce myself.. My name is Pulkit Agrawal and I am one of the trinity of Indicorps Aug 08 fellows that are currently at GDL. I shall leave the others to give more details about themselves, but I have come with the aim of working to tackle youth unemployment, a significant issue here and other rural areas, during my 1 year at GDL..
Born not too far from here, in Jaipur, I’ve spent almost all my life abroad, mainly the UK and now live in London with my parents and younger sister. I’ve just graduated with a Masters in Chemical Engineering from Cambridge University this year and wanted to spend some time living and understanding India as well as doing something constructive before moving into the world of employment.
From tomorrow I shall begin classes to encourage entrepreneurship amongst youth here, as a means of self-employment. I hope to teach my students basic business skills through practical activities and develop their confidence in their own ability to successfully start and run a small rural enterprise. I will primarily be using the MOVE (Market Oriented Value Enhancement) manual – by Dr. M S Subhas (Kousali Institute of Management Studies, Karnatak University) – and Barefoot MBA – by Katherine Boas and Scott Raymond (two Stanford Business School graduates) – along with other individual sources. I hope to foster various soft/life skills alongside and foster a culture of civic responsibility amongst the participants. The first (pilot) batch will run for 2 hours/day and 6 days/week for 1 month, as a preliminary to a more developed strategy.
I am looking for a trainer to work with me in developing the course and to continue after I reach of my time here. In addition there are many aspects of this project that crave input and resources, so if there are any volunteers that would like to spend time developing this concept and start-up course then please get in touch at pulkit@gdl.org.in.
In addition the website is now undergoing some updates, after being pretty redundant for some time, so watch this space!
The Level of Elementary Education Survey was completed by the BEI Team
In collaboration with ASER (Annual State of Education Report) – 2008, facilitated by Pratham Rajasthan (Jaipur). The survey for level of elementary education was completed by the BEI team. This effort was co-ordinated by Kaushal Rajoriya and State Head of ASER organization, Mr. Ajay Sharma. The survey was completed in thirty villages of the Jhunjhnu District, each consisting of twenty households. The objective of the survey is to assess the education level of 3 to 18 year olds, the condition of Angan