Understanding the scale of India’s problems
Deana Gershuny, Natasha Mann and Jamie Munk explain how their experience as volunteers in Jharkhand, eastern India this summer has taught them about the realities and challenges of development in India
Naked children play on the sides of roads packed with cows, dogs and taxis. Their mothers send them after us to beg for money. Men spit red betel leafand urinate on the sides of the roads. Barefoot pensioners pull rickshaws. Families cook their meals on the pavements, and at night the streets are lined with people sleeping.
This is Kolkata. The poverty we saw here at the start of our trip was unimaginable. Privacy is a privilege, but on the streets of Kolkata it is a faraway dream. Having been delayed in Kolkata at the start of our trip by Maoist strikes across West Bengal, we looked forward to finally reaching Hazaribagh where we would be volunteering. It’s difficult to now recall our expectations of Hazaribagh; perhaps we imagined a quaint village filled with picturesque mud huts.
Instead we found ourselves constantly stared at for being white, in a sprawling town of 120,000 people. The poverty here is much less visible than in Kolkata and for the first week we found it hard to adjust our preconceptions. But through our volunteering we soon came to appreciate the many forms poverty can take. People here are not only financially poor, but their incredibly hard lives leave little room for imagination and opportunities. We are privileged to have been able to come to India; most of the people here have never even considered leaving Jharkhand state.
We realise our impact as volunteers has been fairly limited, as the problems India faces are so colossal in scope. Our involvement has included teaching English to girls training to become primary school teachers and working at a youth employability centre, trying to impress on the girls in the classes that it is OK to be confident and have ambitions just like their male counterparts; a particularly challenging task in such a male-dominated society.
Some of the projects we have visited are doing incredible things. Women’s self-help groups are an excellent example; groups of women that are trained and provided with loans to start and expand their own businesses. The women repay the loans in monthly installments, and the small amount of interest collected is put back into the wider community.
For example, the interest generated by one of the self-help group projects funded by Tzedek is being used to put 20 girls through education, whilst at the same time ensuring they don’t marry before reaching the age of 18. Such sustainable programmes are highly successful and enable women to send their children to school. Moreover, they are able to save a small amount each month and, with their new status as bread winners, they become empowered to advocate change within their communities.
Things in India don’t exactly happen overnight. Change is slow and frustrating, and the road to development is a long one. But we have met some amazing people here who are dedicated to making change happen. We have experienced a culture stranger and more fascinating than any of us would ever have imagined, and are so grateful for having had the opportunity.
