William J Clinton Fellowship Program Orientation Report October 2009

Dates: 2^nd September – 9^th September 2009.

Venue: Vishwa Yuvak Kendra, Chanakyapuri, Delhi.

No. of participants: 19 fellows, 2 full time AIF Staff, Sridar.

Goals:

• To orient the fellows about the socio- political- economic scenario of India.
• To expose fellows to urban and rural organizations and their functional styles.
• To introduce them to the corporate sphere and helping them to understand the difference between the development and the corporate sectors.

• To prepare the fellows to the difference in lifestyle and living in India
• To create an environment of camaraderie between the fellow fellows and AIF SC staff.

The orientation of the William J Clinton Fellows of 2009-10 was spread over 7 days at Vishwa Yuvak Kendra, New Delhi. 19 fellows attended the orientation week, with one arriving 2 days into the orientation week. The week consisted of various resource speakers, who conducted interactive sessions on a range of topics relating to the development sector in India. Topics including education, health, environment, politics, the corporate world and livelihood were covered by professionals with hands on experience in the respective fields. Along with the guest speakers, site visits to urban NGOs and cultural events were integrated into the orientation week. A visit to the National Gallery of Modern Art, followed by a dinner was organized by Sridar Iyengar, an AIF Board Trustee.

Sessions:

Given the short time duration of the orientation week (bearing in mind from past experiences that fellows are obliged to register at the respective city FRRO offices within 14 days), a strong attempt was made to cover a range of development topics. The week began with a professional management consultant, Rajiv Khurana providing a ‘break the ice’ session for the fellows to become better acquainted with each other. Though not relevant to the development sector, this session enabled the fellows and the AIF staff to get to know one another better through team building and interactive exercises. 84% of the fellows found this session enjoyable and very engaging in terms of discovering more about each other. Tarun Vij gave a detailed presentation on AIF and the work AIF is doing in India, which gave the fellows a lot more information on AIF, enabling them to be prepared as AIF ambassadors whilst in the field. Previous year’s feedback had highlighted the fellows less knowledge of AIF’s work, which was well explained by Tarun. Comments from the fellows stated that it was ‘very enlightening and of value to know exactly AIF’s programs’

Livelihood

On the topic of livelihood and the corporate world, Nachiket Mor (President of the ICICI Foundation) with Deepti Reddy, provided an in-depth presentation on development in the corporate world. The session was very interactive with the fellows, as the speakers presented the ‘business’ aspect of the development world, along with profit for non-profit initiatives that have been undertaken in India. This session opened up the fellows to the opportunities in the social enterprise aspect of development, and received a 79% rating from the fellows.

Alak Jana from Pradan, with more than 10 years experience, gave a grass root level talk on livelihood from microfinance to livestock development. Many of the fellows found him difficult to understand, given the cultural difference in language, however, they were glad to interact with someone from the grassroots who had a lot of interesting content to share.

Health

There were a total of 4 speakers on health in India. Ranging from Public health by Dr. Rajiv Tandon, a member of the Indian Advisory board and the USAID head in India, to ‘health and safety’ by a previous well received speaker; Sreela Dasgupta. Savitri Ramaiah’s session (a previous speaker), provided the fellows with a lot of insight of what to be aware of in terms of health and safety in India and scored an 89% rating on the fellows feedback. Dr. Rajiv Tandon’s session was a more question and answer session, encouraging the fellows to ask questions to areas of interest, a very engaging speaker 84% feedback, the fellows strongly recommended having Dr. Tandon for future sessions.

Anuradha Mukherjee from the Naz Foundation gave a talk on LGBT rights, which was found to be educational to the fellows, but could have had more interaction, hence the 81% rating.

A new topic on mental health in India was added to this year’s orientation by the organization Manas.

Education

Manas Chakrabarty spoke on Education in India, including Demographics and India’s education progress over the last 10 years. As a speaker, he emphasised the potential power and opportunities that the fellows have to help improve the education in India. 87% of the feedback found this session very worthwhile, with comments such as ‘very interesting topic & great teaching style, kept my attention.’

Other sessions:

Shankar Venketeswaran gave a very thoughtful and interesting talk on Indian NGOs. The fellows found him to be a very engaging speaker and his content useful. 81% was the rating of this session.

Jonathon Ripley, an alum and former staff of AIF, gave a presentation on his personal experience as an AIF fellow and presented his video on sexual differences in India. As with the Alumni panel, the fellows found this to be one of the most useful sessions – giving them insight and a step by step procedure on how Jonathon conducted his project when he was an AIF fellow. A question answer session also helped the fellows understand some of the hurdles faced by Jonathon during his fellowship.

Panel Discussions

There were in total 4 panel discussions; The Ashoka Fellows panel, the respective NGOs mentors’ panel, environment panel on waste management and the AIF alumni panel. All were thoroughly enjoyed and of great value to the fellows, giving them a platform to ask many of their questions to people who have worked/ are working in the same space that shall be. The Alumni panel and the mentor panel received the highest ratings of 91% and 87% respectively.

Past fellows, consisting of Kirsten, David, Payal and Pooja had a great interaction session with the fellows, where the fellows were able to discover how previous fellows had gone about their respective projects, hurdles they had overcome and day to day life in India. It was also a great opportunity for the fellows to ask any questions that some of the other resource speakers may not have been able to answer, simple things such as methods of identifying accommodation with tips etc.

	The mentor panel is a must for every orientation session – this was the general overall feedback from the fellows. 90% of the mentors arrived in Delhi for a half day discussion as a group; informing all the fellows of what kind of work they will be doing as individuals.

The mentor panel session with mentors from the NGOs

The environment sessions were very interactive and consisted of a small panel with Vimlendu Jha, Malati from Chintan and Anita from Conserve. 87% was the feedback from the fellows, who engaged well with the panel, asked a lot of questions and really found the Chintan site visit very interesting and worthwhile, as they were able to gain some on hands experience in the field. Anita from Converse – an AIF partner, introduced the fellows to the use of plastic in recycling and creating bags and other goods which has generated an income business for the rag pickers of Delhi. Some of the fellows paid a visit to the Conserve site on their day off.

The fellows integrated with all the AIF staff both at the AIF office and at the venue, where different staff members would attend some of the sessions to interact both with the resource speakers and the fellows. Having AIF staff present improved communication with the mentors and the fellows and post the orientation week, fellows have been in touch with the relevant AIF staff for advice, information etc, to their projects.

Events and Site visits:

The fellows visited the NGMA gallery, and had two site visits; one to the NGO Chintan (picture below) and the other to Salaam Baalak Trust in Paharganj, Old Delhi.

To intersperse the orientation with some fun elements, the fellows were taught Bollywood dance to get the real taste of India.

Suggestions and other comments:

Many of the fellows responded that more site visits should be made. Some of the sessions were found to be lengthy and given the short time scale of a week, the orientation week was quite intense. Being able to relay what they are taught in the ‘class room’ with the resource speakers, to the outside world with more interaction with NGOs was a big suggestion by the fellows, as they felt just having speakers didn’t provide enough exposure. Pre-reading material and more handouts was another suggestion. Post the orientation week, all presentations and contact details of the resource speakers was sent to all the fellows, encouraging them to network amongst AIFs network for resources.

The overall feedback value is 82% for the orientation week.

PLACEMENTS OF WILLIAM J CLINTON FELLOWS FOR 2009-2010