The Clients

The great thing about the GCP is that the students really get to “go and do” as opposed to the “go and see” of most tourist trips. Most of the weekdays during the trip are allocated for client work – the students meet with their clients, conduct site visits and interviews and gather the information needed to complete their consulting assignment.

This year in India we have 4 client organizations. Pranab and I spent the better part of the first week (which was just Wednesday - Friday) visiting with each client to check in on the teams and basically do some handshaking and relationship building. Seems like that shouldn’t have taken us the full week but it was slow moving because: a) the clients are located all over Jaipur which is pretty spread out; b) the traffic in this town is seriously crazy; and, c) there is no rhyme or reason (at least to me) about how addresses work so we had to spend time driving up and down streets, stopping at shops to ask directions (the “Indian GPS” as Pranab calls it) and looking for building #3 on a street that literally goes 1... 14... 108... 22 etc. It’s quite an entertaining process.

Anyway, a quick description of each of the organizations that the students are working with:

Bodh Shiksha Samity started in 1987 with the establishment of a community school (or bodhshala) in Jaipur and has grown to be recognized as a pioneer in the field of education for the urban deprived. They are opening schools of their own, in close partnership with local communities, and are also working closely with the government to help improve the government schools. As the number of schools in their network grows, the student team is working on a process for gathering and evaluating data from all the schools (e.g., collecting data on appropriate metrics such as attendance and performance and then analyzing and using this data in a useful way to measure success and identify areas for improvement). Not an easy task in a country where most schools don't have computers (or even electricity or running water in some cases). Here's the Bodh team:

Center for Microfinance (CmF) provides a range of technical and support services to local microfinance institutions and stakeholders in the microfinance sector. CmF also conducts pilot projects to test the feasibility of new microfinance products/services, e.g. they are currently overseeing an urban microfinance pilot in Jaipur (in contrast to traditional microfinance programs which are located in rural areas, leveraging the family and rural community structure). The students are working with CmF on diversifying their fundraising strategy and identifying ways to make their programs more sustainable. Here's the CmF team at their first meeting at the client site:

CECOEDECON (Centre for Community Economics and Development Consultants Society) was founded in 1982 to provide relief to the victims of devastating floods in Jaipur. Since that time, they have grown tremendously and now serve the Rajasthan region in many fields, including poverty, child development, education, health, finance, women's empowerment, equity and human rights. The students are assessing the impact of recent financial and political decisions in India on the farmers that CECOEDECON supports and potentially recommending ways in which these farmers might be helped.

I-India is an NGO “giving street children a future” through a variety of programs, including residential homes, education and vocational training, medical care, nutrition, and a crisis helpline. Their programs reach over 3,000 street children daily and assist children with homelessness, malnutrition and illness – while also developing their attitudes and skills so they can make a better future for themselves. One of these programs, Ladli, is a vocational training program providing emotional support and education – including specialized trainings in jewelry and handicraft making - for abused, orphaned and destitute children. Handicrafts and jewelry are then sold with proceeds going entirely to the children and funding the project. The students are helping to think about expanding Ladli to help more children and sell more products to help fund I-India’s programs.