FE$: Foundation for Ecological Security

A look at the summer lives of four undergrads working on an environmental development project with the Foundation for Ecological Security.
Friday, July 17, 2009: Cribs: The Village Edition
This week marked an important occasion: we moved into a village about 2 hours away from Udaipur and began working on our project. FES has asked us to [...]

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Nourishing Potential in Rural Rajasthan, by Jessica Sinclair Taylor

Hampered by the complexities of working in a foreign country, an unknown language and an often alien culture, I found weaving together my picture of the work of the Veerni Project was similar to the process of creating the intricate quilted wall hangings made by the women of Rajasthan – a process in which the [...]

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Drought, Discrimination and Progress, by Jeffrey Schuhrke

My FSD internship here in Jodhpur is with an NGO called UNNATI (the word unnati means “progress”) and is centered on their disaster risk reduction program. The major disaster here in the desert of Western Rajasthan is drought. My previous experience has dealt with hurricanes, earthquakes and wildfires, which tend to be very [...]

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Escaping Poverty through Women’s Empowerment, by Jack Gregory

Following the introduction to my new family, I was to start my internship with the Jal Bhagirathi Foundation (JBF) the next day. Abi, my co-intern, and I arrived in good spirits, ready for organizational integration. We immediately set out with Sateesh, who is responsible for the Agoli Block Women’s Self-Help Groups (SHGs), to visit the [...]

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Day to Day with the Centre for Women’s Studies, by Hanes Motsinger

“I just hope it was ok, I know it wasn’t perfect, I hope in the end, we can laugh and say it was all worth it…” – Ani Difranco
I have now been here 75 days. For those 75 days I have been working with the Centre for Women’s Studies, a small department of a local [...]

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India’s booming economy… and everyone else, by Nina Robbins

India’s booming economy is thrusting the wealthy of India into the ranks of the world’s richest, but how about everyone else?
After my first two and a half weeks trying to find my place in the charming chaos of India I can confidently say that the sight of a traffic jam caused by a 52 sheep [...]

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Development of the “Rainbow Game”, by Ashley Harden

As a nine week intern in India, time is short and work is hectic. Although, I have limited time here, I was still able (with the support of the FSD site team and my co-workers) to implement and obtain funding for a project. The Institute for Local Self-Governance and Responsible Citizenship, my host organization, conducts [...]

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Implementation in India, by Cynthia Goitia

It is perplexing to think that in all my time spent in development-focused courses, taken in Sweden, Chile and California in an attempt to derive some comparison, I found repeated emphasis on theories and inflated economic prowess without ever understanding how exactly things get done. Implementation. And yet one week into my internship in India [...]

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Color in the Graphs, by Morel Jones

When I signed up to work with a development NGO in India, I had very romantic notions of what my experience would be like. In February 2008, I began working with an agricultural development organization called Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK), which is partially staffed by scientists and works to improve the livelihoods of farming [...]

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An Untouchable, Indestructible Army, by Casey Lord

Casey Lord is interning with Sambhali Trust in Jodhpur, India, an NGO whose mission is to empower Harijan (“untouchable”) women by providing them with an environment free from discrimination and home duties where they can learn new skills in sewing, embroidery and basic English. Casey is particularly involved with the sewing initiative of the trust [...]

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