Over the past few weeks, many of you have fallen under the impression that my time in India is all about traveling, eating, hanging out with friends, with the occasional visit to my school thrown in. And while the IDEX Fellowship is about expanding your horizons, it may surprise you all who know my social butterfly ways that I still have a job to do and I think it's been a while since you've heard about it. I take it for granted that my day-to-day life in school and at meetings is rather boring for you, yet in order to really get a full picture of life in Hyderabad, you do have to understand a bit more about what I am doing and why. Well and this helps assuage my conscience because I have been really neglectful about staying in contact with a lot of you. But I promise- I have evening meetings at least 2-3 times a week and even have events to attend on the weekends. So I don't love you all any less! But back to work...
So social enterprise. I know in my first post I attempted to explain what I was doing under the fellowship and I believe I did a rather poor job. First, I should probably explain what the whole concept of social enterprise is. Social enterprise is about combining business acumen with a social mission although many social enterpreneurs don't even realize they are doing both. You see, most of our school owners see themselves as businessmen(or women) plain and simple. Perhaps they are doing a good deed for the kids in the city but at the end of the day, their bottom line is what matters most. But this doesn't really make them any less of social entrepreneurs. Our job is to help them not only with their business model but to enhance the quality of the social service they are delivering. And outside of the schools, we all interviewed and were selected for various Professional Development positions with other social entreprises around the city and the country.
So what does this look like? Well in my case, I am focusing heavily on extra-curriculars and infrastructure improvements in my school. For instance, I plan to get some semblance of a library up and running, have created drama and art clubs for students to express themselves outside of academia, have connected 5th graders in the US with 6th graders at my school through a pen pal program, will help run a cricket league and spelling bee, have been holding computer and English training seminars for the teachers in my school, and am a resource to bring in career training and other educational services to better the school.
I am also currently working with the Indian School Finance Company which services many of the slum schools in Hyderabad. ISFC gives loans to schools for infrastructural improvements where most banks fail. However, as ISFC has only been up and running for several years, there is still a lack of information about the impact of these loans. And that's where me and another fellow come in. We will be visiting at least 50 of these schools to conduct in-depth interviews with the school owners and creating a profile for each of these. We will also be compiling a SIM survey for all 247 schools with loans to complete. At the end of the year, we hope to have a report detailing ISFC impact and a template for measuring future needs within the community.
And of course, all of this has created one of the least structured work schedules of my life. I mean, I do go to school on a regular basis although some days are shorter or longer than others depending on other work commitments. But then it's the random meetings, information sessions, and other group collaberations that come on a irregular basis. And this being India, meeting times are moved around, cancelled or change location on a last minute basis all the time. Just part of the Indian business scene.Yet I have had an opportunity not only to collaberate with other fellows who have great ideas, but also meet movers and shakers in the development scene and even in Indian business. Multi-millionaires and CEOs of some of the most exciting social enterprises in Hyderabad? Been there, done that.
So yes, I do work, actually more than I expect most weeks. My 9-5, Monday-Friday internship seems like another lifetime, especially when I sit in on a teacher training session all day Saturday or spend Sunday afternoons in group meetings. But it's already been a fulfilling experience. I mean, things definitely don't work out like I expect them to, pretty much all the time, but they also take unexpected turns for the better. There really isn't anything to beat the feeling of having a student at school excited to learn or your school owner impressed by an idea you have and seeing it implemented in your school. It's about the small changes you can make and the individual connections. Maybe I won't change the world, or even India, or even Hyderabad, but perhaps I can change things for the better at Lohia's Little Angels High School. I sure hope so...
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