Kickoff

We have 8 more weeks before we start on our service project to Sidhabari. I hope you are all as excited and looking forward to your visit as I am.
   Sidhabari staff have started their prep work in anticipation of our visit.  They have presented a preliminary high level plan, I will go over the overview of the plan in this email. 
   CORD has been serving marginalized and poor villagers, mainly women and poor farmers for over two decades. This effort was indeed began in Sidhabari. We will get to experience different aspects of CORD activities during our stay.  The plan covers our exposure to the following CORD areas of service during the course of our stay 

Yuvati Groups: Encouraging Self-Confidence in Young Girls
Balwadis: Nurturing children
Self-Help Groups: Accessing Financial Resources
Sustainable Income Generation for Women
Primary Healthcare Services
Rehabilitation of the Differently-abled    

The Tentative schedule for the trip looks as follows:
9th July 2013 Arrival
10th July 2013 CORD - Filling up Forms & CORD Orientation
11th  July 2013 Adolescent Girls Group - Self Discovery Process 
12th July 2013 Adolescent Girls Group - Self Discovery Process
13th July 2013 Balavihar in Field
14th July 2013 Weekly off
15th July 2013 Farm Sector activities and orientation 16th July 2013 Farm Sector activities and orientation
17th July 2013 Slum Area Visit (National Rural Health Mission) of Health pgm
18th July 2013 Mahila Mandal/ Self Help Group for micro-credit
19th July 2013 Saintation & hygiene ( Garbage & soakage Pit construction) 20th July 2013 Sanitation & Hygiene ( Garbage & Soakage Pit construction)
21st July 2013 Weekly Off
22nd July 2013 Sanitation - Toilet Construction
23rd July 2013 Sanitation - Toilet Construction
24th July 2013 Sanitation - Toilet Construction
25th July 2013 Community Based Rehabilitationattached here
26th July 2013 Adolescent Girls Group - Self Discovery Process
27th July 2013 Community Based Livelihood ( Non Farm & Service Sector)
28th July 2013 Weekly off
29th July 2013 Adolescent Girls Group - Self Discovery Process and career counselling
30th July 2013 Centre Day & Presentations
31st July 2013 Departure

We will walk through the schedule and activities on the next call on 5/19.

This will not only be a chance  for us to participate, experience and learn but also an  valuable opportunity to give back. . As gurudev used to say "Offerring service  with the sevabhav will benefit you more, than the people you serve". In that spirit lets start preparing tasks and activities that will help us grow.

We have created 4 teams that would be working in parallel in 4 different locations according to the above schedule. The document below shows the grouping. Please go through the powerpoint slides at https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_kyYrQPT2hHajlLLUctYVlNSTA/edit?usp=sharing to find out which team you are in.

Start thinking about each category of activities and discuss them within your team. Come prepared for next call as per guidance below.

  

CORD has provided us with an training manual  they use to train the field workers. We will be using this manual to plan acitivies for "Adolescent Girls Group - Self Discovery Process" activity. You can read through this manual to understand how the field workers are trained, what happens at these sessions, how the process is divided into steps and delivered. Imagine being in the classroom with a bunch of teens and a field worker going through this session and how you can contribute to the process. We will discuss this document in more detail on our group call on 5/19 and the session will be productive if you have read through the document.

For balwadi visit you will be spending your day with the kids. This would be a great time to mix your creativity with a message that would entertain and inspire the kids.

The Mahila Mandal visit is a place where the CORD's years of diligence can be felt. The community visits will help us interact with the locals.  

The Self Discovery Manual is at this location https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_kyYrQPT2hHX09ZNG1rZTVWQWc/edit?usp=sharing  

The local community language is Pahadi which is close to Hindi. Brush up your hindi if you already are familiar or learn hindi phrases and words, verbs , adjectives between now and the beginning of the trip. It will come in handy. Each team currently has atleast one kid/adult who know hindi. All material and content we prepare has to be understandable with little english knowledge.

We can come up with ideas for posters, videos, presentations, activities, ice breakers, games, songs. Let your imagination free and we can discuss as a group how to channel all the ideas into plans and execute them in the next few weeks. 

   

P.S. Please keep track of the number of Hours you are spending/ preparing on these activities. They will be counted towards your voluteer hours.