Friday, February 3, 2012

Service Learning

So while I spend time in India I am required to volunteer my time through service learning. As part of our common curriculum at school it is required of all students to volunteer their time and many people gain these 2 credits during their time abroad. While I am in Kolkata I am working with a women's NGO called Reach India, that works with women and adolescent girls from rural areas in order to educate them in various aspects of their well-being such as healthcare, sexual and reproductive rights, etc. I am very excited to be volunteering with this NGO because I am especially interested in the discrepancies between male and female sex ratios in India, as well as the basic human rights that should be given to women.

Currently I am working on compiling a list of female reproductive rights identified as basic human rights for women and we are going to use this list in order to add a short information session into the educational learnings that Reach India already teaches. Creating this information session and the required materials that go along with it will take approximately a year to implement in the field. I am hoping that through my current research, I will be able to help educate rural Indian women about what reproductive rights are reserved for them.

The most exciting part of working with this particular NGO, is that one weekend I will be asked to visit a rural village in order to record case studies on women who have benefited from the education that they have received from Reach India. We don't get to spend too much time in rural areas in India because we are attending school, so it will be interesting to see the drastic changes between rural life and urban life (I did experience a little bit of this in Shantiniketan). It will also be a good opportunity to meet new people and make an impact in these women's lives.

If anyone is interested in donating to Reach India (they are sponsored under Reach which is an American affiliate) you can email me and let me know!

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