Although I’ve been in India for a full two weeks now, it is only today which I’ve solidly gotten into the study group aspect of the project.

As hinted to in previous writing and correspondence, Mahindra United World College of India is literally on top of a hill. Not a lumpy thing, its sides slope upwards quite steeply and the campus is accessible by a 5 KM road winding up from the nearest village of Paud. The hill itself is in a valley boxed in by ridges much like the Portland to Walla Walla drive, maybe a wee bit higher. The college is on the side of the millton (hill/mountain) facing Pune; the basin in the opposing direction, behind MUWCI, is the Kolwan Valley.

From my vantage point near the top earlier this evening, it looks as though there is one major river winding through the basin. Most areas surrounding the water are green rice fields and browning bald spots. As you look higher up on the sides enclosing the valley system, it becomes increasingly more and more barren. Oddly enough, there are patches of trees scattered here and there. I also heard, in contrast, that the entire area is a bright green in the months following the monsoon. Unfortunately, there is very, very little rain during the 8 dry months.

Involved with implementing the survey are 20+ MUWCI students. Teams have been going out every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 1430 and return at 1700. One source of difficulty is that few of the community development team (”com-d” for short) speak Marathi, the local language. The implementing teams can usually talk 2 to 3 people into going out each afternoon, but it does not consistently mean the same surveyors with the same experience.

We went out this afternoon to a village called Kalmuli (spelled phonetically) which is just near the base of the hill. Since Ashwin of Gomukh has graciously offered to help us survey the Kolwan Valley, teams from MUWCI will now take villages within a 10 KM distance and social workers who are friends of Ashwin will help procure results beyond that point. Upon arriving at the village, we looked for the contact we had on the list of villages but could not find him. I believe if we had he would’ve been able to point to which households should be queried and the like. Apparently not finding the contact is common. Our survey respondents were then found by splitting into two groups of three and wandering the village randomly.

The first person we came in contact with knew how to read Marathi. We left the survey with him and moved on to find another household. At the second household, we interviewed a woman in her later years. From my observations, it seems as if almost fifty percent of the questions require some form of follow up statement to either clarify the question or clarify what we want in our response. Since we are now using Gomukh’s version of the survey, I am unsure as to whether this confusion is because of the wording of the questions or the topics themselves. At a com-d meeting this evening, we decided we would stick with this version of the survey all of the way through so that we don’t have yet another one to contend with when compiling results. Any questions we would like to clarify on we will do so during the focus groups.

As I’ve mentioned before, these are the constraints MUWCI has come across so far:

• Not having enough people who speak Marathi to translate
• Not having substantial time to implement the survey
• Questions which are vaguely worded or have unclear objectives

I’m sure there are more but I am blanking at the moment. I will let others clarify in the comments.

From here, the tentative plan is to:

1. Continue implementing the survey for the next ten days
2. Start typing and compiling results in that time period
3. Start planning how we will schedule the focus groups in that same time period
4. Implement the primary round of focus groups with MUWCI during the 1st through 6th
5. Implement secondary round of focus groups with Sadhana and Gomukh beyond 7th
6. Work on compiling other necessary materials for report beyond that date
7. Stakeholder meeting on either 16th or 17th to discuss results and implication of survey

All of that being said, it is hot, dusty, and pretty ballin’. I’m excited to see the tentative results of the survey because I haven’t yet already. There should be some pretty interesting stuff we come up with.

Hi all,
So the conference sub-committee has been hard at work the past few weeks sending out email invitations to a few less than five hundred organizations, social businesses, and trusts across India. The process has been long and tedious, and at times frustrating, but we have finally finished. As replies have been coming in slowly but steadily, the hard part of keeping everything organized and up-to-date begins. Yukta, Spenser, Alicia, and I will also be beginning to make calls next week to NGOs confirming details and urging the ones that haven’t responded yet to do so. We also have a growing number of travel scholarship applications to review, but that won’t begin until after the February 15th deadline for applications. Overall, we find people are much enthused about the conference, and we have also had a large number of groups willing to contribute to the Water Book. As the number of confirmed attendees grows, so does our excitement!

One Love,
John

We have recently begun to really put into action our date auction in coordination with the Kappas. The idea is to have Whitman students and professors up for bid for a “date.” Tuesday, Feb 19th we are having the auction and Feb 20th on Wednesday night we are having the dessert banquet. It is fantastic working with the Kappas. Maryn, the fundraising chair, is extremely well organized and very bright. So often it is hard to really team up with other campus groups and have it work out, but the Kappas are doing a phenomenal job working with us. I am extremely appreciative for this.

Designing the media for this even has been my job. It was a huge undertaking that I got done in just a few days and I am extremely happy with how everything turned out. We have big posters, table toppers, flyers, mailbox stuffers and brochures. In addition to this media, the Kappas are sending out e-mails on all their list servs, making a facebook.com page, and spreading the event via word of mouth. We are also trying to get a Pioneer (Whitman’s campus newspaper) article written.

I have recently stepped back from the rest of the fundraising endeavors quite substantially and I am excited to see who steps up as a main leader to make this event happen well.