My India Fellow journey got more purposeful when I reached Chhattisgarh after...
Learnings From A Craft Mela In Kutch
Experiential Learning is something that we have all heard of. Same is the case...
Kushinagar : A Mental Revisit
"... it is in the nature of all things to decay." Gautama Buddha As I stumbled...
A Bus Journey From Source To Destination
In the area where I work, families often migrate seasonally for labor. They...
Taboo And Anger : Where Is The Space For Empowerment?
The image of the prime minister posing with his scepter, juxtaposed with the...
एक नर्स की भूमिका
नर्सेज़ का वेतन अलग-अलग जगह पर अलग होता है। प्राइवेट हॉस्पिटल मे नर्सेज़ का वेतन...
Amplifying Community Voices: Inclusive Radio Programming
In this digital age, media plays a vital role in shaping our society. Ensuring...
Water: From Scarcity To Abundance
"Come, come, sit under the tree. Yes, it's scorching hot anyways. Shall I make...
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...
Lanji’s Quest For Education And A Better Life
Based on a narration by Lanji Majhi We all have had some old person trying to put us in perspective by sharing stories of how they once used to walk to school, everyday with heavy books in their bags. Well, the story that has been narrated to me by Lanji, a...
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...
My Friend Azzli
I opened the door of our Drop-in Centre and found a short-statured dusky woman, who had her pallu wound around her face, as if it were band-aid. And this kids, is how I met your…I mean, my best friend – Azzli*. In the beginning of the fellowship, new to the whole, “Ye...
Conversations About Boundaries
"I think women's tolerance to male entitlement has come down as compared to our mothers' generation", said Rohini* sitting on one side of the canal. We were five India Fellows who had come to this beautiful village called Noor* for our rural immersion. Two other...
Meenakshi Devi and Her Never Give Up Attitude
A still from Meenakshi Devi's classroom My anticipation from the first field visit during our induction training was largely based on my stereotypes of villages. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie puts this across eloquently in her TedTalk 'The Dangers of a Single Story' She...
My Experience Of Living In Rural India
As a part of India Fellow, I lived and worked in Kashipur in Rayagada district of Odisha. Here are a few highlights from the 13 month journey: Food Odia food is rice with other items. No meal is complete without rice. I used to get my meals from a mess for INR 2000 a...
From Udaipur, With Love
“Is experiencing village life one of the reasons you joined the fellowship?”“What, no haha. I mean, I know a lot of people are looking forward to that. So, no offense, but I grew up in a village, so not really!”, something I said in the first month of the fellowship,...
Working With Minimum Resources, With Those Who Have Nothing
Picture by Mahir Bhatt, a 2017 fellow Trigger Warning: This is a case of suicide, as narrated by Sister Rani, a senior nurse at Swasthya Swaraj in Kalahandi, Odisha There was a sudden hustle in the clinic, almost a sort of panic as a tribal woman was brought carried...
![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...
Bridging The Digital Gap In Rural India
Financial inclusion, in today's day and age is not what it was a decade or two ago, when having a bank account was the starting point. Today, 'digital' is a key piece in the puzzle of financial inclusion, specially for low income communities. India is set to have 820...
Of Windmills And Women
“I ask you to leave your home, the clothes you wear, the family you love, and all that surrounds you because tomorrow, I will build a mall on the above the stacked pyres of your identity. You can’t fathom it. You won’t. Why must I? Why must your development come at...
Of Partition, Earthquake And Community Festivals: How Kharad Artisans Double Up As Storytellers
“You are looking at a handmade, natural-dyed Kharad painstakingly made by my son Samat and I,” says Tejsibhai Dhana Marwada, letting the coarse, flat-woven rug slowly drop to the floor revealing a design in intense colors of black, white and dark brown. “But most of...
‘Postnatal Care’ In Rural, Tribal Villages Of Southern Rajasthan
Ramila* is a 22 year old woman who lives in Hathiya Talai, a village in Gogunda block of Udaipur, Rajasthan. Ramila had high fever on the third day after her delivery. Her baby died on the second day. “There was no breast milk and the baby would just not open her...