A call for Obama O’s

Tags

accelerators, Airbnb, community-based social entrepreneurs, incubators, microcredit, Self-Help Groups, social entrepreneurship, UnLtd India, Y Combinator

Ever wonder how Airbnb became one of Sillicon Valley’s hottest billion dollar babies?  As the story goes, it all began with a shortage of cash for rent and a few inflatable mattresses.  It progressed to $20,000 in credit card debt and a maverick plan of branding fictitious Airbnb (Air Bed and Breakfast at the time) collectable cereal for the 2008 presidential campaign (complete with hand-drawn and hand-glued cartoon Obama and McCain labels) sold at $40 a pop.  As the tale goes, after being autographed and auctioned off by Katy Perry and sending a box to every tech blogger from SoMa to SoHo, “Obama O’s” raised $30,000 in working capital and turned three starry-eyed entrepreneurs into pioneers of today’s “share economy“.  What began as a problem of sold out accommodation for a San Francisco conference had soon turned two designers and an engineer into Silicon Valley’s latest success story.

That’s at least what the average Joe will tell you… But if we take a closer look, somewhere in-between collectable cereal manufacturers gone billionaires, you’ll find Y Combinator, an A-List entrepreneurial accelerator and bootcamp for elite internet start-ups.

Business accelerators and incubators exist in all shapes and sizes.  While The Unreasonable Institute is traditionally a 6-week intensive bootcamp in Boulder, Colorado exclusively for social enterprises with high scale potential, Dreamit Ventures is a multi-city 3-month program for innovators across sectors with locations in Austin, New York, Israel, and a health specific program in Philadelphia in 2013.  On the whole, incubators tend to be non-profit or government funded, “managing” and nurturing very early stage ideas and projects over the course of several years.  Accelerators on the other hand are typically highly selective profit-driven ventures that take a share of a company in exchange for 2-4 months of intensive mentorship and funding.  Incubators and accelerators however, agree with respect to several coveted provisions: funding, business advice, and access to professional networks typically including investors.

Is the world of acceleration, jump-starts and first chances reserved only for the next Mark Zuckerberg or those destined to turn down 9-digit offerings from Mr. Steve Jobs himself (Dropbox [2009], another Y Combinator start-up)?  As mentioned before, accelerators and incubators are a diverse bunch and UnLtd India is one such case.  A Mumbai-based incubator providing early-stage support for social entrepreneurs, at UnLtd entrepreneurs (or “investees” as they are called) are classified into one of three categories:

• Type A – Those with previous management experience likely in the private sector, and a professional degree from a foreign or top-tier Indian institution.
• Type B – Those who may have experience in the non-profit sector, typically with a strong educational background likely from a local Indian institution.
• Type C – Those who serve his or her community of origin (likely lower-income), and have a limited or very basic educational background.

Despite eligibility and encouragement of investees from all three backgrounds, the portfolio of entrepreneurs at UnLtd remains skewed towards Types A and B.  It was this problem at UnLtd in combination with an open-ended IDEX assignment that led a team of four (myself included) spread across three Indian cities into the field with two primary questions: 1.) How does external information enter lower-income communities? And 2.) Once information is there, how does it circulate within the community?  The research was aimed at investigating effective channels of communication in lower-income urban and semi-urban communities in Bangalore and Hyderabad.  The end goal was to identify steps for strengthening the current pipelines of support that exist for “Type C” community-based social entrepreneurs who are unintentionally marginalized from the start-up ecosystem of support, networks and funding that can make or break any idea, inflatable mattresses, MIT education or otherwise.

Here’s what we found: 

• Newspaper and television (opposed to radio and the web) are the two primary media access points for information entering lower-income communities.
• Community members are most receptive to information delivered by known connections as opposed to people they’ve never met.
• Community leaders including school owners and local politicians are key to facilitating the circulation of information within communities.
• Because the notion of “social entrepreneurship” is nonexistent still within lower income areas (as per our research communities), illustrative examples are the most effective way to communicate what we mean by “changemaker”.
• Referral systems for connecting community-based entrepreneurs to existing networks of support for start-ups exist across the ecosystem including Ashoka Youth, however these networks need strengthening in order to become fully effective.

And drum roll please….

In the end, we found one live and well community-based entrepreneur who was operating completely outside of the tight knit ecosystem that exists for social entrepreneurs here in Bangalore! He’s a Guru who runs a yoga and health center, serving over 400 members daily from up to a 10km radius.  In addition to yoga and health services his studio serves as an unofficial community center as he provides space free of rental charge for outsiders providing drawing/painting, music, traditional dance, soft skill programs, and community business and party meetings.  Additionally, he coordinates and sponsors outside artists i music and dance as well as lecturers for events that run free of charge.  It may not sound like much, but in a neighborhood on the outskirts of India’s leading IT hub, this guy is a true gem and work of his kind is a rarity.

ADDITIONAL FINDINGS:

1.) In addition to the above, one intriguing finding (albeit slightly off-topic) was the organic discovery of women’s Self-Help Groups (SHGs), a community-based network and channel of communication in their own right.  SHGs, “Songas”, or “Lady’s Group” (as referred to by teachers at school, many of whom are members themselves), exist in plenty in semi-urban northwest Bangalore particularly in and around the school where I had worked for 8 months.  According to Jaya Lakshmi, the “carpenter’s wife” who lives on the corner, there are more than 50 Songas within a 2km radius in Bagalagunte (60,000), each of which has 20-25 members and must register with the local MLA (Member of Legislative Assembly) or local government before being officially recognized. Jaya Lakshmi, who turned out to be the self-appointed head of six local SHGs, relayed that every month each Songa member must give Rs.100 (about US $2), which goes into a bank account and is used to give a loan of Rs.20,000 (about $375) each to two members “in need” for use on education (to pay school fees), medical bills, to buy a vehicle for employment purposes, or towards other financial woes (“money problems” as they’re commonly referred to).  According to Jaya Lakshmi loans are paid back at 2% interest within 10 months with rates doubling if payments aren’t being made.  Nothing adds up, ever in Indian financials.  Don’t try to do the math.  You’ll just become frustrated.  

Apparently the local government allocates funds to the Songas for use on expressed needs such as buying sewing machines to hold tailoring classes or for someone to buy a vegetable cart to start a business.  Jaya Lakshmi meets monthly with the MLA himself to discuss the needs expressed by the women of the various Songas.  It is clear that Jaya Lakshmi’s hefty involvement with the area Songas is in part a product of her close ties to the current MLA, who allocates community funds, for the Songas and otherwise.

SHG’s like Bagalagunte’s “Songas” are part of the burgeoning “self-help movement”, a community-based and humanistic development strategy with the goal of restructuring societal power.  The global SHG phenomena is expected to bring 40 million additional Indian women into the SHG sphere within the next 5 years, product of increased Government of India (GOI) investment that will cut the current average loan interest rate in half from 11-14 to 7 percent via the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) scheme.  Although with little at face value in common with our search for community-based entrepreneurs in need of incubation, I believe there is great potential in the use of SHGs as a viable communication network within lower-income communities throughout the developing world.

2.) In addition to SHGs, there was a complete lack of consciousness of civic duty among community members with local political leaders generally thought the only ones capable of helping those in need.  When asking someone if they knew of anyone who was “helping the poor”, there were typically two responses: 1.) a blank stare often accompanied by a quizzical eyebrow, or 2.) an “mmmm, the MLA or local leaders. They help people.”.  After talking with a wide variety of people including several of these “local leaders” deemed financially capable of affecting change, it became clear that there was a disconnect in the community psyche that associated helping others and social good with financial resources and political clout, only.  As it turned out, the local political leaders were the ones with fancy houses, who also had family in politics, often only educated through the 12th standard and known for giving financial hand-outs to those in need.  “Everyone has their own problems [“money problems”] here…why would we help the poor”?

A philanthropic notion of social good and associated only with those in positions of power made clear one reason why incubators like UnLtd India find it difficult to source investees from a community-based or lower socioeconomic background.  Discovering an ingrained and profuse mentality of disempowerment and an absolute lack of consciousness of the power of and opportunities within the social enterprise stratosphere validated our initial call for fieldwork.  Only able to scratch the surface with limited time and resources, further research is needed, perhaps with a couple full-time translators at our side as well as a few trusted boxes of Obama O’s.  From what I hear, it’s the “Breakfast of Change”.

Lingo and Life “Itself”

Tags

Holi, Indian culture and customs, Indian use of English, public behavior in India

Things I say now – that I’ll probably still be saying back in the States… 

• “Here only” – Meaning: nearby (vaguely speaking). Used: Often enough for me to need to use it to be understood.  Example: “Where does Neela Miss live?” — “Here only” (with an arm outstretched referring to somewhere in the nearby vicinity).
• “Itself” – Meaning: only.  Example: “Where are you from?” — “Bangalore Itself”.
• “Injection” – Meaning: shot/vaccination. Used: In search of a clean hospital (clean enough) for round II of V of the anti rabies series. Side note: Vitamin “injections” are quite common here.
• “Just 5 minutes” – Meaning: please sit down and wait.  This could take anywhere between 15 minutes and a few hours… Used: Far far far FAR too often.
• “Shifting” – Meaning: moving (houses). Example: “We just recently shifted to this side (see below)”.
• Go “left side” – Meaning: it’s on the left.  Example: “Go that side”.
• “Native place” – Meaning: hometown.  Example: In the recent flurry of vacating our flat (“shifting”) when asked where we were going.  The one and only answer — “to native place”, of course.
• “Auntie”/”Uncle” – Meaning: NOT your mother’s sister or brother.  Used: when referring to an any elder.  Example: a 3-year old or small children on the street might call out and address me as “Auntie”.  If I was Indian, I would most likely address an older man working at a shop as “Uncle” before asking him a question.
• It’ll take “some time” – Meaning: any amount of time between 2 hours and 2 weeks (or 2 months…).  Used: once again, far too often.
• “Opposite” — Meaning: across the street.  Used: when giving or receiving directions anywhere.  Example: “The landmark for the meeting point is opposite the Delite Cinema”.
• “Parcel” — Meaning: doggie bag.  Used: at most street food stalls and any restaurant.

and last but certainly not least….

• “nim’ma upahāra hondiddavu” (“ootay-aytha”) – Meaning: Have you had your lunch?  Used: EVERYDAY and asked 12 times per day as a polite greeting or conversation starter.  Example: Best when adapted by your security guard at 11pm and asked in English, “Have you had your evening breakfast?”.

Things I do now — that I’ll probably never ever do again… 

• Smash coconuts as hard as possible on the outside balcony or outside apartment wall until you hear the crack and the water starts to seep.
• Buy brilliant block printed fabric, visit the tailor, and have handmade clothes ready the next day.
• Get cooking gas from a 2.5 foot tall red cylinder, drinking water from a filter, hot shower water from a geyser, and milk in pouches (YES just like 2^nd grade!! Except no chocolate…:(.
• Design library furniture, hire carpenters, and carry storybooks around in suitcases.
• Receive coconuts, bananas, biscuits, and odd assortments of fruit as a gift when leaving someone’s home.
• Shove cake in people’s mouths on their birthday.
• Be on a first name basis with the internet man, whose number is also on speed dial.  His name is Danesh by the way.
• Throw colored powder at people while cracking eggs over their head and wishing them a very very Happy Holi :).
• Eat mango pickle, chapatti with ketchup, parrota with curd, lime soda with salt, coffee with chicory, or curd rice IN GENERAL. Never ever again.
• Travel via luggage rack…. Exhibit A:

Things that happen — that (for the most part) I gosh darn hope aren’t new fads back home…

• Driving, motorcycling, auto rickshawing in the wrong direction (sometimes down the shoulder, sometimes not), typically out of convenience and sometimes necessity as entry to the correct lane from a particular point has not yet been built… ie. Leaving our apartment headed towards the city center.
• Men doing that obtuse spit aggregation mouth hurl thing, of course followed by the shameless public spit, clearly planned for just as you step on the exact same spot.
• Bus drivers stopping their fully loaded bus (public or private) on the side of the road to pray at a roadside temple or to have lunch at the stall “opposite”, while all passengers remain seated on the bus.
• Trash up in flames on the side of the road, in the middle of the road if there is bandh (strike), anywhere really… and ALL the time.
• Old men on the public bus trying to steal your freshly baked cake by the fistful. Ok ok.  You were in the process of sitting down without falling while searching for exact change and helping your roommate with her person-sized backpack while putting a cover on the damn cake.  The old man was of course just curious and had no idea why you and Nina laughed until you reached town.
• Bringing clothes for ironing requesting that they be ready for 3 days later.  Returning 4 days later to find untouched and un-ironed clothes…. Minus the ironing, fill in the blank here…
• Muslim men with flaming orange hair — the product of fluorescent mehendi hair dye and a fear of greying.
• Men holding hands on the street (best of course when it involves the cutsy “pinky lock”).  Teenage girls doing the same (albeit, less “pinky” and less open canoodling compared to their male counterparts)…

I could go on. But we’ll keep it light 😉

Saraswati Pooja and Prasada for 559

Tags

Hindu mythology, Indian school traditions, pooja room, prasada, Saraswati Pooja

How did you celebrate the last day of school?  Final mass assembly where you were crowned for Math Olympiads or perfect attendance? Scrambling for last-minute yearbook signatures over a pizza party? Cleaning out your desk (“sweeping the contents of…” rather) as fast as humanly possible to commence those hard earned lackadaisical summer days?  What about throwing flowers at God and then eating smooshy bananas? 

In Hindu mythology, all knowledge is said to flow from Saraswati, the Hindu Goddess of learning, wisdom and art.  In contemporary India, it is tradition to worship Goddess Saraswati to gain her blessings in one’s quest for excellence.  When not being “waved” with a tray of candles, honored with flowers and offered bananas by high school students chanting mantras (as recently performed at Srinidhi School), she is most often found reading a book or playing the lute (OR doing both simultaneously as she does have 4 arms).  

The ritual of Saraswati Pooja is quite common in schools (at least schools owned by devote Hindus like mine) prior to the final examination period of the academic year and particularly prior to the almighty 10th standard S.S.L.C. high school clearance exam: the zenith of primary education in India. 

While due respect was being paid to Goddess Saraswati, it occurred to me that I was the only non-high school teacher in the room. Gracefully exiting and popping up the street to the other side of the school (the school is divided in two by a residential unit), I stumbled upon the below scene in the ground floor 9th standard classroom:

All primary teachers_ adorned in a rainbow of their finest silk_ chest deep in a monstrous medley of half-cut vegetables and a variety of rusted gadgets for peeling.  Becoming public knowledge rather quickly that I was a liability (a hazard really) on the hand coconut grater contraption, I was quickly demoted to banana peeling duty alongside two 8th standard girls, whose classmates were likely the ones assigned to tend to the 470 students not praying to god over in the computer room while their teachers fixed prasada for the entire school.  While on the subject of bananas… in case you were wondering, after 10-months in India, countless poojas and accompanying prasadas, the girl that once prided herself on 23 years of “never having eaten a banana”… I now somehow eat the darn fruit.  And kinda even enjoy them :).

Today’s Offering —

Kosambari (lentil vegetable salad): cucumber, chilly, carrot, coconut, cilantro, coriander leaf, curry leaf, green gram, and salt. Mix together.

Rasayana: Bananas, coconut, and jaggery. Smoosh together.

Waking up early for sari ironing and tying at Devika Miss’s house — was on the Google calendar!  3-hours of prasada prep for 559 and the afternoon off in honor of Saraswati — an unexpected bonus of another day in India :).

* * *

In Hinduism, prasada is the sacred food offering to god during worship.  Offerings must be purely vegetarian, with no onions, garlic or mushrooms, and prepared in an environment conducive to devotional meditation and with a high state of cleanliness.  That is of course why we all sat on newspaper, barefoot and cross-legged.

Generally speaking, Pooja (or puja depending on who you talk to, the temperature outside, day of the week ;)… ) is the sacred practice or prayer that Hindus perform prior to taking prasada to show reverence to God (all different Gods).  Pooja is performed for many different occasions and functions from several times a day at set timings in temple, to special functions like that of honoring thy Goddess Saraswati at school as detailed above, to daily (or several times daily) pooja in the home.  Some homes may even have a small pooja room (or at least a smaller “pooja corner”) where the deities (God’s idols) are kept and worship is performed.  The location of the room is of course north-east in orientation and does not touch the same wall as the toilet.  An array of flowers, fruits (usually bananas) and incense are typically involved.

Not to worry.  My next pooja room will have a pyramidal shaped roof to promote the flow of positive energy.  Idols of Brahma and Vishnu will face east, both perched on a platform with surrounding walls of earthy hues.

Happy Summer and Happy Ugadi (Hindu New Year!) 🙂

A Day in the Life… because you’re all dying to know what I’m actually doing in India

Tags

affordable private schools, Bangalore, Indian bus accidents, school field trips, Wake up Clean up Bengaluru

7:15 and the alarm sounds.  A kurta and leggings.  A few bangles.  Email over French press robusta with Nina (I’m telling you – could surely open Nagasandra’s first coffee shop – any investees out there!!).  Elevator, complete with that ghastly hotel music, by 8:05.

As my first visit to CM National School where Nina works, she gave me the full tour including the beautifully overstocked and spacious library, padlocked shut and all.  We were supposed to meet Nina’s school owner and introduce him to Nikhil of IndiaCan at 9:30 with the hope of arranging a seminar to pitch IndiaCan’s intensive 5-week TALLY, Pearson English, and soft skill courses to 11th standard students (have been collaborating with Nikhil over the past few months to launch vocational training programs in affordable private schools — more on this later).  Nikhil arrived around 10:20_ in fine Bangalorean fashion_ shortly after we’d heard word that Nina’s school owner had recently vacated the premises with unlikely chance of return. Side note: This meeting was not only cancelled 2 more times before it went off, but since Nina’s school owner took both ideas that Danielle and I pitched to him and implemented them on his own through other providers.

While waiting for Nikhil, I was on the phone with one of the guys from Reap Benefit, a start-up social enterprise that we’ve been collaborating with to launch low-cost environmental and sustainability initiatives with students at my school. After 4 days of lingering emails, unreturned phone calls, and being passed between 4+ different point people, free transportation for Srinidhi School students to attend “Wake up Clean up“, Bangalore’s largest waste management event, was alas confirmed!!!  The bus was scheduled to arrive at school to collect the kids at 10:30am. It was now 9:38.  Called Madam (school owner) to inform her.  She’d recently heard.  No idea if the Madam herself would have called me to relay the victorious news.  No idea.  Would bet lakhs upon lakhs however that she could not fully articulate what she was about to send 50 kids and 2 teachers an hour and a half into the city for.  Lunch was provided though; it must be something good!  Will meet the bus and the children at the event itself I told her. 

Leaving CM National, Nikhil kindly gave me a lift to Freedom Park (the site of the event) on the way discussing the root causes of profuse corruption, school owner genuinity and altruism, and why Indians lack a little thing called “initiative”.  Once at Freedom Park, the all too common broken English quasi-scavenger hunt for fill in the blank (today the Freedom Park bus parking lot) ensued.  While on the hunt, I called Madam to check in on the bus that by now should have reached.  The children were still at school and there was no sign of the bus.  Knowing that it would take “some time”, I wandered across the street into “____nagar” (“settlement” in Sanskrit attached to the name of any district or town in Bangalore) looking for a Vodafone recharge and quality caffeine.  Soon stumbling into longtime Bangalorean eatery MTR, on my hit list for awhile now, I indulged in a little legendary Rava Idli while welcoming the chance to phone Shifa, our Kannada speaking savior about following up by phone with parents from this past weekend’s survey.

The bus reached by 1:30 (only 2.5 hours delayed!) —  Forty-nine students from classes 6 and 7 and two non-English speaking teachers in tow.  Albeit two of my favorite teachers were sent, send “Foreign Miss” with someone who she can talk to, no?!  Off we went for skits and a puppet show on neighborhood dumping grounds and proper segregation, companies turning plastic bags into plastic chips, and an interactive art installation with people drowning (literally) from garbage.  Fellow IDEX’ers, Daniel with kids from his school and Dream A Dream’s designated photographer for the day, Sarah Hayes were also in attendance!  Definitely one of those experiential afternoons right up until letting the kids loose for a few minutes on the playground at the exit of the park.  You would have thought those kids had never been on a swing before.  The truth is that some of them hadn’t.

As the bus pulled out of the parking lot and I was briefly catching up with Danielle (colleague and “Inkling” collaborator) about the results of yesterday’s meeting with MedSkills, the bus successfully bisected 4 lanes of traffic, stoping just shy of taking out a chaat stand.  During the classic 5-point turn, the bus slowly crushed a little white car at its rear.  While the public stayed calm initially and the bus driver continued to maneuver the bus so that traffic could again flow, a heated brawl soon ensued.   From what I could gather from the students about what the police, car driver and bus driver were saying, it was that the bus needed to wait for the car driver’s brother (the owner of the car) to arrive at the scene.  As the car driver launched into verbal onslaught going as far as to stand in front of our bus for the next hour while attacking the bus driver and attracting a crowd, the bus driver remained stoic, seemingly not phased by the whole ordeal as if this was a routine 5pm occurrence (there must be some law somewhere that protects government bus drivers from liability in the case of accident) .  Best part of the whole thing besides attempting to keep 50 Kannada speaking kids quiet and assured on the bus for an hour, was the teacher’s strong affirmation that this was not_ I repeat NOT_ a bus/car “accident” but simply a “bump”.

“Bump” or otherwise, we were delayed an hour and a half reaching home. Immediately ditched the now sticky leggings and hit the nearby park (a hidden gem found a few months back!) for some laps at dusk.  Was on a bus an hour later headed back into the city to catch a bus to Auroville (7 hours east in Tamil Nadu) where Madison and I would be spending the weekend doing a workshop in permaculture at Solitude Farm.

I typically don’t go to school with Nina or chaperone a field trip or endure a bus accident (although this was my third).  It’s true I usually run in the mornings not the evenings, some days cut-off by a herd of goats with a few trailing sheep, other days cornered by 5 skittish strays.  Rava Idli (or any idli for that matter) isn’t the standard luncheon fare and I’m rarely lucky enough to see so many other fellows.  I do travel by bus, albeit typically not with 49 kids, and the traffic is usually far worse.  There is usually an hour or two of morning “mentoring” with my school owner… warming up with chitchat about shopping in Dubai and crocheting before stressing for the umpteenth time about the criticality of single-sex bathrooms, hand washing sinks and a working budget for FY2013…

I picked today because there were no major catastrophes or run-ins.  No brawls with rickshaw drivers over bad meters or conniving bus drivers hoarding due change or phone vendors about selling “second hand” phones versus broken ones with bad batteries…. Today there were only a few flubs and even a couple small wins.  It was different from yesterday and will surely differ from tomorrow.  Today was just another day in India — India “Itself” :).

Chapati 101

Tags

chapati, cooking lessons, mango pickle, South Indian food

CHAPATI: One in a long line of traditional Indian flatbreads.  Cooked on a griddle rather than a tandoor oven like naan with just a tiny dollop of oil in contrast to deep fried “poori” and with 2-3 layers opposed to “paratha’s” 7-8, and always layered and neatly folded into a triangle for a “parcel” (doggie bag) which counterpart “roti” would be far too brittle to handle.  Yes, you heard me.  I can assure you that “roti” is not –I repeat– NOT synonymous with the word “bread” but is indeed its own breed at least here in Bangalore where thy “roti”, although still unleathened [without yeast] like chapati, are born tandoori style, with more resemblance to its beloved sister naan actually, than soft and malleable chapati…. which time and time again reminds me of the flour tortilla.  EXCEPT that it would be a whole wheat [“atta”] flour tortilla and never eaten with rice inside like a burrito. Or with rice at all.  EVER.  That’s a no no.  And a bit awkward when it happens_as it has_ naturally.

Absorbed with any one of dozens of curries like all the other Indian breads, chapati is a bit more versatile than its more nocturnal counterparts.  Prepared up to 3 times weekly by traditional Indian women in the home (breakfast, afternoon snack and evening), chapati is always eaten hot off the griddle.  Sometimes just forget the curry and hand over that lethal mango pickle (which truth be told does NOT resemble a mango whatsoever, but rather red HOT chillis, like 100 of them in a single swoop of that chapati).  And that “red sauce”…Uggh.  Indians love their ketchup, chapati being no exception.

Whenever I bump into Devika, the yoga teacher at school, on my walk home, the first thing out of her mouth is an invitation to her house.  There and then.  Take it or leave it.  Can’t she just ask me a day ahead?? Nope. That’s not how it works. I instantly accept accompanying her home, usually finding her 13-year old son en route.  With force feeding, Indian chai, and a fine showing of her craft projects always part of the agenda, last Monday a little “Chapati 101” also sealed the deal :).

Basic Chapati Recipe — compliments of “Yoga Miss” —

Ingredients: Wheat flour (atta), water (“nīru”), salt (“uppu”), and oil (“taila”).

Using the right hand, mix a little water and a pinch of salt with the flour until a solid dough is formed.  Break off two small chunks and using both hands roll each into a ball (about the size of a golf ball).  On a flat surface, flatten each with the right palm.  Put 1/4 teaspoon of oil on top of each flattened ball.  Then put one flattened ball on top of the other, sprinkle flour on top, and using the palm of the right hand, “smoosh” together until they are one.  Sprinkle a bit more flour.  Using a miniature rolling pin, create a thin circle about 6 inches in diameter.  Throw onto the hot griddle with 1/4 teaspoon of oil.  After a minute, use the thumb and pointer finger together to pinch the chapati lifting upwards, and trying not to be burned by the hot pan in the process.

Did I mention that Devika does not speak English?  Hardly a word.  And that right there has been one of the coolest things about living in India.  That plus a fine variety of flatbread_ minus the mango pickle and ketchup. Damn good :).

Sweating Buckets in Ladies Only

Tags

Delhi rape incident, English Vinglish, eve-teasing, gender segregation in India, role of women in India

Last week’s airborne trek back to Bangalore allowed more than enough time to indulge in Lufthansa’s collection of bad foreign films and beloved American sitcoms.  A single gem among the bunch however —  the 2012 Bollywood hit English Vinglish.  In the film, Shashi, a traditional “sari-clad” Indian homemaker and wife of an office-going modern man, goes to NYC to visit her sister.  Insecure about her inability to speak English, for which she is ridiculed by her pre-teen daughter and well-educated husband, Shashi is pushed to the brink of frustration navigating Manhattan and impulsively enrolls in English classes.  The film culminates a few weeks later when Shashi surprises her family with her new linguistic prowess, giving the toast of the evening_ in English_ at her niece’s wedding.  In addition to the market potential of Shashi’s under-appreciated homemade Laddoos :P, English Vinglish could not better illustrate the socio-cultural complex and subservient role of the female in Indian society.

As I finished off the last of my smuggled German pastries and silently applauded Shashi for her courageous self-transformation, I turned to my stash of light reading.  Nearly 3 weeks after the fatal gang rape of a 23-year old paramedic student on a public moving bus in Delhi, every global publication, the world over was still talking about it (today still in fact): “India’s Shame: A Brutal Rape…”, “Rape and Murder in Delhi“, “Sexual Violence in India: How long will the Media’s Interest Last?“.  Are TIME, The Economist, and the International Herald Tribune justified in making famous Delhi’s favorite 6 rapists and was December 16th truly a “Turning Point” for India’s women”?

According to a 2011 global survey, India is the fourth most dangerous country in the world to be a woman, coming in only ahead of Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan.  Among G20 Nations, India ranks last.  Despite illegal ultrasounds, sex-selective abortion, and ancient dowry practices, India has an an ever-distorted sex ratio (914 girls to every 1,000 boys) with 50 million “missing” Indian girls over the past century due to female infanticide and foeticide.  In addition to child labor, sex-trafficing, and child marriages, the UN’s human-rights chief considers sexual violence_ “eve-teasing” as it’s called here in India_ a “national problem”.  With 1 conviction among Delhi’s 600 reported rape incidents last year, case investigations are rare and due justice rarer.  Do you want the truth? The majority of sexual violence cases go unreported.

With impunity for sexual violence and age-old attitudes aside, gender divides and biases exist among Indian school children as young as 11 (and perhaps much younger).  For instance, have them count off by 5’s so that there are 7 groups of 5 random students each.  Present an activity that requires them to sit next to, talk to, or [goodness forbid] briefly hold hands in a circle with group members of the opposite sex.  Turn your back for 1 minute and they will have silently and efficiently rearranged themselves into 7_ slightly less equal_ groups defined by a single gender.  At Srinidhi School, this is how it works, grades 7 through 10, every single time.

After 6 months of living in India, it is somehow still a daily reality check that gender equality is not celebrated by a burgeoning economic superpower and the world’s largest democracy.  With thousands of protestors, increased bus security, a media ban, and a new “fast track” court for women’s cases as of recent however, perhaps it won’t take a cultural revolution or national shift in attitude for things to change (only minute-by-minute media updates on the Delhi incident… :p).  While the world awaits the verdict on the Delhi rapists and India’s commitment to female justice, I’ll be sweating in my scarf and long pants, sandwiched between sari-clad women at the front of the bus… in the designated “Ladies Only” section.

Ponies, Dreams and Slumber Sacks

Tags

arranged marriage, Dream A Dream Bangalore, lack of creativity in India, patriarchal society in India, Ride that Pony game

Have you ever played “Ride the Pony”?  Let me rephrase that.  Have you ever played “Ride the Pony” with thirty-four 15-year old Indians?

Ride the Pony, Ride the Pony,

Ride the Pony, Ride the Pony….

 This is how we ride!

Front-to-Front-to-Front, Oh baby

Back-to-back-to-back, Oh baby

Side-to-side-to-side, Oh baby

This is how we ride!  (repeat from top)

The song commences with the group skipping in a big circle and pauses momentarily for booty dancing with a partner at “Front-to-front-to-front”.  (Rhythmic arm action a must during booty dancing).  Skipping ensues as the song repeats.  A new partner is found for next round of booty dancing.

15-year old Americans wouldn’t be caught dead playing “Ride that Pony”.  They are too cool to Ride, and let’s be honest, too cool for most things.  When they get to college at age 18 or 19, they may finally be ready to revert back to childhood, taking the form of the occasional evening dressed as a pregnant nun, Annie Oakley in a slumber sack , or the Great Gatsby’s Ms. Daisy Buchanan.  What about all those times you were dressed up without the slightest idea what you were, in college or otherwise.  One thing for sure, you probably weren’t short of ideas every time someone asked you.

But what if you were?  What if you’d never before played make-believe or your entire schooling had been based on regurgitation rather than originality?  What if life existed without imagination and your college years devoid of a versatile slumber sack?

At the Dream a Dream outdoor experiential camp a few weeks back, 10^th standard students from the Round Table School not only reveled in “Ride that Pony” but for the first time in their lives were asked to pretend.  It was an invitation to step outside the tiny worlds that they know so well and create art from trash, “Rivers of Life” and “Dream Trees”.  It was a time to pass around an imaginary weightless ball and a stick that became your heart’s desire.  It was a weekend of improvised statues, birdcalls, and fashion runway ‘trainees’.  It was eight straight meals of rice with no fork or spoon offered.  It was 3 facilitators, 4 staff members, and 3 volunteers (myself included), and a safe space to grow, aspire, and be as they had never before been.

With nearly 6 months of IDEX social enterprise hypnosis under my belt with high frequency buzzwords like “impact assessment” and “sustainability” constantly looming overhead, I left the weekend’s retreat a tad disenchanted, with particular respect to the camp’s 25 (of 34) female participants.  The reality is that 45 percent of these girls will be destined for marriage before they turn 18.  Despite newfound liberalism and a percolation of “Westernism among the upper crust, rural India and urban lower classes are today still defined by a deeply conservative patriarchal culture.  Irrespective of a weekend of self-exploration and exposure to a future beyond that which they know, most girls have little leeway when it comes to arranged marriage and early termination of their education.

Despite industrious efforts to breed independent ambitious visionaries among India’s underprivileged youth, it’ll take far more than Dream a Dream camps, soccer, life skills, and creative arts programs to trump entrenched archaic tradition like that which characterizes India.  Which brings me to the broader question —  How much leverage does social enterprise have as a whole within the context of deeply rooted cultural traditions and practices?  Three days of dreaming at camp may not be a clear-cut ticket to economic opportunity and a life beyond that of a homemaker, but Riding the Pony (hopefully while wearing a slumber sack) is certainly a good place to start :).

the “Wicked” Problem — the Intrepid Entrepreneur

Tags

affordable private schools, entrepreneur, Indian education system, school owners, social enterprise

The “Wickedness” — At Srinidhi School, education quality is poor, learning is relative, and teachers are textbooks that talk, if that. Is it worth paying someone to stand in front of each class to read a textbook verbatim to students? The typical class, computer, English, general knowledge or what have you, consists of teachers reciting from the textbook while children copy word for word into their notebook. After the dictation, which not to mention is recited from a government caliber textbook written in poor English and recited by teachers who do not speak English, students may complete a textbook class work exercise, or they may not. The final third of the class is spent with in-class grading of the dictation and assigned class work. The teacher gives a once over and a definitive red mark in each of the student’s notebooks. The bell rings and the next class begins, whether Kindergarten, 5th standard or 10th, most likely proceeding in much the same trajectory.

At Srinidhi, teacher quality is at the core of school problems and at the heart of school owner complaints. Despite repeated request of the school owner for teacher input and ideas, staff exhibit no initiative or critical thinking ability with respect to teaching, lesson planning or school role, and fail to deliver (for the record, there is no lesson planning, current school improvement initiatives, or special programs/extracurricular activities). According to the school owner, teachers should be using dictation and note taking for 1-2 lessons prior to an exam for review rather than as the primary means of “teaching”. Teachers should be using hands-on activities and more interactive approaches in their lessons and should be bringing to her their own ideas.

The majority of teachers arrive at Srinidhi with an undergraduate degree, a potential 10-month teacher program certification, and for high school teachers, a master’s degree in their respective subject. They hail from the immediate neighborhood of Bagalagunte and are mostly mothers with school-aged children and no previous teaching experience or skills training of any kind. While the school owner has lofty expectations of her staff (as compared to their current level of performance) she does not offer training upon hire or professional development throughout their career. Teachers are not only unclear of what the school owner expects of them, what she means by lesson planning and “hands-on” learning, but are ill-equipped to execute her demands at their current skill level. Teacher motivation is not the issue as teachers continuously express desire to improve their English and teaching ability, however the school owner has yet to explore options and meet this demand. Although the school is not financially transparent nor a sustainable operation, there is money available for training and school improvements on behalf of Srinidhi Education Society (family money), however execution has yet to be seen.

In addition to adequate training for teachers, human resources can also be exalted from the “wicked problem” list. The Srinidhi School administration is sufficiently understaffed with the school owner and 1 accountant/personal assistant attempting to manage 25 teachers, 535 students, and dozens of systemic problems. However, while understaffed on the administration side, Srinidhi is overstaffed on the teacher side as an unskilled assistant teacher resides in 4 of the school’s 13 classrooms. By eliminating assistant teachers alone, a skilled principal to assist the school owner could be hired, without spending a Rupee more than what is currently allocated in the imaginary “budget” for staff salaries.

Furthermore, hiring more qualified teachers as well as administrative personnel would be more within the school’s means if there was a stricter and more effective fee collection system ensuring more regular monthly payment by families. Last month’s Rs.50,000 deficit is proof that the school regularly pays out significantly more each month in salaries than it collects in school fees, which is only partially remediated at the end of the school year when families are prohibited from registering for the next school year without paying off the previous year’s tuition debt. Although fee collection is a bit trickier than say giving teachers the training and tools they need to be successful, a basic late payment penalty system or a slight increase in school fees are two examples of small steps towards increased revenue and subsequent purchasing power of more qualified human capital.

With human resources, financial constraints and lack of teacher training dismissed as root causes of the education quality problem, why then is student learning limited by poor lesson and teacher quality? Why do teachers continually fail to meet expectations of the school owner despite not being trained on what is expected and how to do it (did I mention that Srinidhi is an English medium school and that the teachers don’t speak English)? Why is there a misallocation of human capital with too many unskilled teachers doing too little, while there are no skilled administrators to help with any one of a dozen different problems the school owner finds herself faced with daily. How does the school owner simply shrug when relaying that nearly half of the parents have not paid school fees for the last three months? If we follow the problem of poor quality of education back to its root, we arrive at the “wicked problem”: the social entrepreneur herself, Srinidhi School owner.

Two Approaches — There are two ways of approaching the “wicked problem”, one of which is through the social entrepreneur_ a leader, innovator, problem solver, organizer, risk taker, jack-of-all trades sort with lofty goals of social and/or environmental gains while boasting a profit, in the very least, to remain financially afloat. It is often said that the greatest determinant of a business’s success is the entrepreneur himself that requires a specific mixture of industry expertise, criticality and ingenuity all executed simultaneously and with finesse. It requires management skills, leadership, creativity, delegation, mobilization and motivation, and a need to achieve, all executed with a personality of pioneering perseverance that thrives on risk. Even the most renowned social enterprises struggle with perpetual problems; a dual or triple bottom line is a tall order, even for the most esteemed entrepreneurs among us. For a less than ambitious change agent to enter the market and expect to succeed on the first try, without support, business know-how, and industry expertise would be nothing shy of a miracle. After four months of immersion in social enterprise and more specifically within the education sphere, it is clear that the social entrepreneur himself is the driving force in small business success. It takes a specific type of leader to produce an effective affordable private school. While each entrepreneur will use their own ingredients to create their own “stew”, the common thread in the success models will be leadership that is visionary, proactive, knowledge or research driven and ingenious; qualities that are absent in Srinidhi School’s “master chef”, school owner and social entrepreneur.

The second way of approaching the wicked problem is to take it a step further, beyond the social entrepreneur.  In India, it is common knowledge that the government has failed to deliver quality public education for its people. Whether this is a product of the population problem and the inability of the Indian government to, at present, accommodate the ever-exponential demand for education, or if it is a matter of eliminating resource and efficiency loss through rampant corruption, is a topic of debate.  Regardless, the Indian government has failed to deliver on education; a market failure and void that has been filled in part by the private sector with the proliferation of affordable private schools (APS). Because the current demand for quality education_ and perhaps more specifically, “English medium” schools_ exceeds the current supply, there is extremely easy, low barrier market entry into the low-income private education sector in India. Because barriers of entry are so low, there is a considerable range with respect to caliber of social entrepreneurs (also known as APS owners) that exist within the sector.

Rather than lay blame however on the intrepid APS owner who thinks they have what it takes to run a school, let us take the “wicked problem” back a step further. Why is the Indian legal and regulatory framework such that it is possible for anyone with a little start-up cash for a building to own their own school? Why has the Indian government failed on the education front and is corruption to blame? And what if anything does the “wicked problem”_from the policy perspective_ have to do with the population problem and the government’s ability (or inability) to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for public goods, such as education.

The Solution — This past weekend all IDEX Fellows convened in Hyderabad to pitch their “wicked problem” and proposed solution. We now have four months to work collaboratively in small groups to develop solutions to these challenges, which range in nature from human resources, infrastructure and difficulty in transitioning from a non-profit to a social enterprise, to a “lack of empathy” and “fear of failure”. In addressing the wicked problem of the intrepid social entrepreneur (who may or may not be either of the two), I’ve paired up with two other school fellows and one working at UnLtd India, an incubator for social entrepreneurs, who have identified a void of community-based [what they are calling “Type C”] entrepreneurs in their portfolio.  When it comes down to it, affordable private school owners are our “Type C” entrepreneur.  However, APS owners aren’t the only ones that fit the bill.  Our research question_ what we will prepare for investors and run test pilots on between now and April: How can we use affordable private school “space” in off school hours as incubators for developing Type C community-based social entrepreneurs?

Question of the Week — In light of a presumed “information gap”, how do you get a sensitive target population to answer survey questions the way you would like them to answer (think they should be answering) but without you giving away the answers?  ie. How do you get a population excited and engaged about social entrepreneurship when the word “social entrepreneur” itself lies outside of their myopic lens?

Twenty-Two Thank You’s and a Little Thai Chicken

Tags

family, Goa, Thanksgiving in India

This gallery contains 10 photos.

So, there was no turkey, pumpkin pie, or Black Friday (albeit we did have thai chicken and pitas with humus …

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“Dar Cho” and a Little Piece of Paradise

Tags

Bylakuppe, Coorg, prayer flags, religion in India, Tibetan Buddhism

Fresh Arabica coffee, quiet hill strolls interrupted only by the occasional most agreeable plantation worker, and late monsoon rain (apparently Coorg didn’t get the memo that monsoon season ended last week)… a painless overnight bus had Danielle and I exploring a piece of paradise 6-hours east of Bangalore.  Coorg however (Kodagu as it is now known), had me captivated by far more than filtered coffee and the ubiquitous coffee plantations for which it is known.  A rainy afternoon exploration of Bylakuppe, the largest Tibetan settlement in India soon led us to one of the most inherently beautiful sights I have seen thus far in India: row upon row of thousands of austere colored flags strewn neatly across, dancing swiftly in the wind.

The young monks in traditional golden yellow and maroon garb, shuffling about in pairs of two or three_ a sight in itself for two Americans_ their peacefulness emanating just in passing, were of no help in demystifying the scene before us.  Nothing we are unaccustomed to outside of the strict confines of English-speaking educated elite India, nonetheless most frustrating, as per usual.

The Tibetan word for prayer flag is “Dar Cho”, where “Dar” means to increase fortune, wealth, health and life and “Cho” means all sentient beings.  Based on the most profound concepts of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, prayer flags are holy “devices” that when activated by the wind, produce a “spiritual vibration” of peace, happiness, and good fortune that permeates outward as it is carried away by the wind.  The yellow, green, red, white and blue pieces of cloth __ each color representing an element_ each has a sacred mantra and symbols embedded at its heart.  “Lung-ta” or wind horse prayer flags for instance, are depicted by a wind horse at the center guarded by four great animals (the garuda, dragon, tiger and snow lion) at the corners, aiming to raise the good fortune energy of all beings.  Whether strung high horizontally around one’s home, vertically throughout a garden, or erected on a pole around monasteries, all prayer flags are raised with proper attitude: “May all beings everywhere receive benefit and find happiness…”  — the virtuous motivation behind the flags that greater increases the power of the prayers as they are imprinted in the wind producing a ripple effect of peace and good wishes.

“Dar Cho” discovery in Bylakuppe, highlighted far more than the inherent beauty in prayer flags and the good will of Buddhism. It turned my attention once again to the religious menagerie that is India.  As the birthplace of Sikhism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, religious diversity is nothing new in India.  Still, it is the first place I have lived where you can eat Haleem with Muslims on the street during Ramadan, while watching Hindus queueing up at the temple “opposite” (across the street) for evening prayer, only to run into a group of Christian women at the bus stop on the corner on their way to church.  With religion informing nearly every aspect of Indian life, and with this much diversity existing within any single block, it is a unique phenomenon_ unlike any other on earth_ that India functions as peacefully and seamlessly as it does.  Although I still can’t seem to keep it straight who celebrates which holiday when, for what purpose and how (of course varying greatly depending on the region), I do know that tomorrow commences Week 3 of Dasara (Dussehra) holiday for my school and quite possibly means no school, again.  Bring it on, CSR outreach, pre-primary curriculum development, and waste-management workshop planning.  It may not be the paradise that is Kodagu complete with idyllic prayer flags, but there’s got to be filtered coffee somewhere and perhaps an impromptu street parade or two :).