Yeh hai “Delhi” meri jaan (This is Delhi, my love)

I woke up this morning realizing that it has almost been a month since I actually did any real form of exercise. A month! So, I got up this morning at the ungodly hour of 6 am and made my way outside to try and find a park or somewhere I could run. I didn’t have to look too far. It really is just outside my place.

Now, the Indian parks are different from the Canadian ones. For one thing, you won’t have random street dogs, cows, livestock you name it running around and you won’t have garbage from weeks sorted out to a side as well. Walking around the park, I came to a very sad realization. Even though I love my culture, history, the languages and even bollywood, I am still disappointed by the lack of care the locals have for their environment. I wish people here were more environmentally conscious. It drives me up the wall to see them just throw plastic bottles on the sides of the roads and not care and this is something I don’t want to have to get used to. I can somewhat understand the pollution and India is still going through the industrialization revolution but it still hurts. I think it was something that Mr. Kumar said tonight that hit me. Indians don’t have a sense of civic duty and I think I have to agree with him (at least when it comes to the big cities). I am surprised to find that the isn’t a sense of we that I thought would be prevalent here. It really can be individualistic at times (You guys are free to disagree with me)

Working hours at SARD doesn’t start till 9:30. It basically means everyone shows up around 10 IST. I must say that the group of individuals who I have been introduced today are probably the hardest working people I have met ever. They are very much dedicated to improving the living conditions of the under privileged and work extremely hard as well to make ends meet. There are approximately 5-6 people in the office at any given time. Most of them are accountants since the real work is done in the field. I think I am really going to enjoy working on grass roots projects and since 1996, SARD has really gained an impressive amount of support from the local governments, international NGO’s, UN as well as corporate sponsors such as Pepsi and Honda. They are really trying to focus on developing a mentality of corporate social responsibility.

SARD mainly focuses its work in education and it has several components. One area is to provide support for children who for various reasons tend to drop out from school at the age of 10 years. SARD provides community level training (informal education) in rural areas as well as additional tutoring for children who will later on be mainstreamed into the public education system. They also have achieved a lot of success in this approach. The organization also focuses on women’s rights, HIV/ AIDS Awareness campaigns (safe sex education) in various levels of society. Another component is landmines awareness and rehabilitation efforts across North India. This is the area where will be working in and I will actually be able to go to the Line of Control and see where all the devastation has occurred. I do believe that there are a lot of untold stories here that haven’t really received any media attention back home. I am really going to try to make it a part of my own self discovery to bring these issues back to Canada and really get some media attention going on. I really don’t think that good work gets recognized all that often in the media and it will be an important first step as well to honour those who live in these circumstances and those who dedicate their lives to making the lives of less fortunate better.

I am particularly excited to work with Annu who is the educational director here. She is an awesome woman with such great energy and passion about the work she does. She’s is going to try and see if she can take me to Simla to attend a conference on women’s rights at the end of this month. I hope it works out.

Now for the interesting anecdote of the day: I thought I drank a lot of tea...but holy moly people here drink so much more! I mean it’s not even the plain black tea or green tea. I mean full fat, lots of sugar, masala tea regardless of what the weather is like. I love it! HEAVEN! I practically have tea served to me every hour on the hour. It’s awesome!