The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying, the only thing more...
How Climate Change Affects Migrant Workers
While traveling in and out of towns or cities, I have often observed a...
Intersectionality: Understanding Layers of Oppression
Intersectionality serves as a framework to understand social relations. By...
Machiavellian Leaders In Modern Times
Scholars and practitioners have widely explored and utilized the leadership...
Allegory Of The Cave: In Social Work
Plato's (an ancient Greek philosopher) Allegory of the cave is a philosophical...
Dying Children And Dead Living Rooms
Until a few months back, when I saw parents coming in with really sick...
Ethical Conflicts Of A Non-Profit Working On Financial Inclusion
Imagine, you are standing next to train tracks and you see a train coming....
Whom Does The Forest Belong To?
All about the game of resources and identities, understanding...
Swachhta Will Be A Dream If We Don’t Flush Out The Inequality In India’s Public Toilets
You’ve been running errands for the last two hours in your city’s local market area, and now feel the need to pee. Home is a 45-minute metro ride away, and you can’t wait for that long. But you see the signboards for a public toilet within walking distance. What do...
Doing “Dirty Work”: The Midwives Of Rural Bihar Come Clean
Cleanliness is also a big facet of the work of midwives. An essential component to understanding their responsibilities is caste. This is a representational image. “Who will I teach? They all tell me, ‘Who will do this hellish work? It is dirty and I feel...
Is Our Education System Irrelevant To The Tribal Children?
In my second week at Swasthya Swaraj, I traveled with two of our team members to Taramundi, a beautiful hamlet in rural Odisha. Our team working on education in the region, had been receiving complaints that the classes are not regular here. We weren’t able to reach...
Dream A Little Dream Of Me…
Trigger Warning: Mentions rape, suicide. 'Didi vo thodi pagal hai, usko samjhao kuch.' Asmina's* mother alleges her daughter to be 'out of her mind'. The 15-year-old bright girl rolls her eyes in return. She smirks at me, her smile though lights up her face,...
‘Sweep’ Under The Rug Much? How We Ignore The Reality Of Who Cleans India
Rehabilitated manual scavenger, Maya Sangeliya, 45, looks on inside her house. Photo: Anindito Mukherjee/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images I was brought up with the belief that cleanliness is next to godliness. I can’t recall if anyone ever used that phrase...
What A Kilometre Long Road In South Delhi Tells You About Social Structures
Recently, I relocated to Delhi. I was fortunate enough to have friends who were already staying in a locality called Alaknanda in south Delhi and accordingly, I moved in with them. As I was settling in, it took me just a walk down the road in front of the house to...
The Fading Smiles of ODISHA : Laws and Ignorance
While walking through various routes in Odisha, whether it be rural or urban pathways, one would truly see the gaps in development. The disparity between the development index, as compared to other states, is huge. However, there is one common thing that exists here...
Failures : What You Learn When Things Don’t Go Your Way On Field
Third part of a 3-part series on learning from failures
Failures : Integrity vs Accommodation
First of the 3 part series by our alumni on failures.
Yeh Bahut Mehenga Hai
"Why should I pay THAT MUCH when I can buy something exactly like it at _______ for half the price?!" (one may fill the blank with the name of any High Street shop) More than a century ago, English artist and activist William Morris argued that "nothing should...
You Feel disgusted? You leave!
A long line of women, carrying their babies in slings across their chests, balancing eggs and channa on their heads, is a common sight as we travel in our jeep at Swasthya Swaraj from our head office in Bhawanipatna to the villages. Children are always tied close to...
Who Bears The Brunt Of Borrowing Money?
A gender lens to understand credit in rural India Microcredit = Lending to women in groups I remember making sense of microfinance using this simple equation the first time I read about the concept of lending to the poor. Somehow, it did make a lot of sense and it...
Did Covid-19 ‘Other’ The ASHAs From Their Own?
ASHAs (Accredited Social Health Activists) have been instrumental in managing the pandemic across the country. They carried out several responsibilities in the past year - identifying people showing symptoms of Corona, linking them to quarantine facilities or ensuring...
![One Strand At A Time [A Photo Story]](https://indiafellow.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IMG_20210906_114752-scaled-1.jpg)
One Strand At A Time [A Photo Story]
Having spent a major part of my fellowship in Maheshwar, Madhya Pradesh, it was impossible to not showcase the art-form that makes the place so special - Maheshwari sarees. The sarees and fabrics are registered for Geographical Indication, a certification that the...