Kerala backwaters and Fort Cochin

Kerala is just as beautiful as shown on the pictures and videos. The drive was soo long, it took 6 hours to get there (200 km) due to road construction and heavy traffic but it was definitely worth it. Kerala is a real tourist place, lot of beautiful things to explore. The plan was renting a boat to have a Backwaters's tour, spending some time on the beach and meet India 16 team who is located in Cochin. Great dinners, beautiful restaurants, excellent time, the weekend was simply amazing. I can't take but I love my TEAM! :)))
Pics will arrive within some days: )) It is worth to wait :))

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Week 2- NGO visits

Sorry for not blogging in the past few days ( rather weeks) :)) but it is very difficult to find time to spend with my computer, only the 2 of us :)

The 2nd week was mainly about visiting NGOs, interviewing them, getting larger overview on their projects and scopes and meeting great people who are helping thousands of poor people in the communities.  Our project is the establishment of a Rural Health Training Center by conducting need assessment of the NGOs associated with the Tamil Nadu Voluntary Health Association. Tamil Nadu returned a total population of 7,21,38,958 (Provisional) in 2011. In percentage terms, the rural population formed 51.55% of the total population with the urban population constituting 48.45%. Of this, the rural population stands at 37.19 million and the urban population 34.95 million.

All of us ( Govert, Grazey and me) felt that we've been given a very special opportunity to meet these amazing people. The sparkle what we have seen in their eyes leads these organizations towards success. Willingness, faith and steadiness are the key factors of  their successful operations. The whole week was awesome but if I could name the most touching visit, it would probably be that very short time we spent in a residential school where children rescued from child labor learn and live. It was very a heartbreaking  moment which will always remain in my heart and mind.

As I am blogging from the hotel and the internet connection is very slow the pics will follow within a few days. :))

#IBMCSC India 15

Shopping tour and Topslips

Our second weekend is over- time is flying so fast :(( 

As India 75 team worked on Saturday we decided to go for shopping in Coimbatore and not to go to any tour without our guys. Our first destination was Brookefield, a big shopping mall to buy some Indian-styled clothes- which we all fell in love with. Women have great life here- from fashion point of view. They have a lot of nice materials to tailor from. Coimbatore has a big textile industry- so you don't have to go far to find wonderful dresses. After lunch in the mall we ( the girls) decided to re-visit our favorite place- FabIndia. Fabindia is India's largest private platform for products that are made from traditional techniques, skills and hand-based processes. My god, we could spend a lifetime there :))) The evening we went to a super-glamorous restaurant- The Residency. Soft music, red wine, delicious food, what else is needed? :))
 

Sunday we woke up early to get to Topsplip which is located above 300 meters from the sea level (Hills of elephants). It is an important tourist center in Indra Gandhi National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary (sanctuary covers 958 sq.kms) in the Coimbatore District of Tamilnadu. We expected to see wild elephants and tigers but locals told us that they do not come out from their shelter this season- rather in May-June, therefore we saw one elephant, some monkeys, deers and a kind of Indian buffalo-called gar. We also saw a very old teak tee- it is said to be more than 450 years old. Amazing :)

The 450 years old teak tree

The TEAM: Joe- US, Govert- US( originally from the NL), Joao- Brasil, Bernd- Germany, Aya- Australia( originally from Japan), JeongRan-Korea, myself from Hungary, Sandra- Colombia, Andrew- Australia and crazy Grazey from The Philippines:))

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Mahashivaratri Festival- simply amazing!

Day 7- 17/02/2012


We had our first interview on field with one of the NGOs who is our target "customer" in our project ( Coimbatore Multipurpose Social Service Society ). It was a long, but very interesting and useful interview. Before coming to Coimbatore I did not expect that high level of community activity in India. This is really amazing such as everything in this huge country which is so far and so different from my home but which is so adorable that I cannot be enough grateful for life for this possibility to be given to me. :)

Back to the hotel the traffic was hectic- just as always :))

 

sorry for my camera, it just mixes up the days :)

 The evening we visited Isha Yoga Center for Mahashivaratri Festival. That was simply wonderful!

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Time to play!!

Day 5- 14/02/2012

Cricket is the most popular sport in India; it is played by many people in open spaces throughout the country. Wednesday morning the faculties of PSG played a cricket match. I am not really into ball games so I could hardly follow the rules-- what I realized is if the ball gets out of the field- that's a good shot :)))

 

the winners :))

  After the cricket match and the afternoon we were creating a questionnaire to survey the training needs of the NGOs in Tamil Nadu. We are going to have live interviews with some of the NGOs. which are located close in Coimbatore and send the survey to the rest. Let me say that we are progressing well :)

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1st day at office

Day 4- 13/02/2012

 

Tuesday was our first day at office. We were looking forward to it very much. Just after arrival at PSG Dr. Thomas welcomed us warmly.  He introduced us to the Community Medicine personnel. We got a fancy office- which is is going to be our working place for  the coming 4 weeks. Cool- sorry Joe for using your word..hehe :)))

 

Grazey and Govert at work :))

The afternoon we visited the Vedapatti Health Center. The center is located in the rural area where the health care service is quite limited. They help around 30.000 patients per year. Awesome!

 

 The dinner was spent at Ananhdas- a veg restaurant 5 mins walk from our hotel. This place is going to be my favorite (together with FabIndia). They serve excellent food in a very pretty ambience. This was our last night with Kabi for a while.  We will miss you so much Kabi. Can't wait to see you again! 

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Kick-off meeting with our client

Day 3- 13/02/2012

Monday was full with expectations. This was the first day to meet our clients in person. CDC Solutions made and excellent job when selecting our clients. :)

Our clients are:

1. PSG Institute of Medical Sciences & Research: Govert, Grazey, me
2. India @ 75: Andrew, Bernd, Valery
3. Sankara Eye: Aya, JeongRan, Joao
4. ABT Society : Sandra, Allison, Joe

Our client is PSG and the project we are going to work on is the expansion and rollout plan of the PSG Rural Health Training Center for NGOs in Tamil Nadu. Dr. Thomas Chacko and Dr. Sughuna Devi were present from client's side. They are going to be our host for the coming 4 weeks. It was nice to see them in live finally :)

We had a lovely dinner together with Mamtha ( IBM) and Kabi (CDC Solutions). I already know that I will miss my team soo much after the assignment :((  Cannot I just pack them up and take them home?? Pleasee!!! :)

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