What does this blog have to do with my six-month volunteer program in India? I guess we will all find out.
You see, I actually began this adventure, six months ago, when I applied for West Monroe's Fischer Global Service Fellowship Program. Initially my thought was that this "photo blog" would be used to help create empathy through photography, highlighting what I saw and did while in India. However, now that I'm onsite I'm not sure that this will be the case.
When you hear the phrase "Volunteer Abroad" most people associate those words with physical labor, clean water, education, or poverty… I however, am doing none of the above. At least not directly. The time I spend abroad will be as an International Development Intern with the Foundation for Sustainable Development - my role is to work with a partner Non-Government Organization (NGO) to identify the organization's needs and create a project that leverage's my strengths and skill set to meet those needs. For many of you who are reading my blog or will be reading my blog, this idea of partnering with an organization to fix problems may sound familiar. If it doesn't, West Monroe Partners, my employer, is a Business and Technology Consulting Firm. As consultants, we work with our clients to meet their needs and often times we assist them in working through their problems.
Like most organizations and companies, NGO's come face to face with the common issues and pitfalls related to business and project management. They face issues with generating incoming, meeting their goals, and planning for the future. So here I am, in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India, a business consultant working with a local NGO to identify a project, create a plan, and execute it. While this won't be a typical consulting project, the skills and knowledge that I've picked up over the past three years will provide me with tools necessary for success; all the while, cultural differences, language barriers, and unknown expectations will have a direct impact on the project's final delivery.
For the next six months, I will be working with Jatan Sansthan, an NGO focused on empowering young people and women in Rajasthan. My two-week orientation is coming to an end and the project definition phase has just kicked off. During my time as an intern/consultant/volunteer, I will be making updates to this blog. Every week I'm learning something new and every week my expectations shift. As the project begins to take shape these posts will become more regular and as I spend more time in India, I'm sure that some of the local slang will make it's way into my written voice. I guess what I'm saying is that as a reader your expectations for this blog shouldn't be set, not yet anyways.
Also, photos are coming… sometimes you just need a few days or even weeks to acclimate to a completely new environment on the other side of the world.
Cheers!
Early morning flight from New Delhi to Udaipur, my home for the next six months. (iPhone 6)