Intern's diary: Lotte de Rooij
The first two weeks in Pune, Maharashtra So, here we are. The first two weeks have passed and our research is just about ready to really start off. We’ve had a bumpy ride these last two weeks. By we, I mean my group mates Chidvilas and Gaurav (both from Pune), Nancy (from Sikkim), and myself (from the Netherlands). The bumpy ride consisted of shifting accommodation for Nancy and me, and we are still facing some problems (leakage in our wonderful apartment, because of the monsoon). But above all the visits that we have done in this period are worth mentioning. The first week and a half consisted of several visits to NGOs we might work with during our research. So instead of doing extended literature studies, like most of our fellow interns, we started our research by actually going into the field. For me, this was exciting, amazing and sometimes shocking. We got to spend time with children in a school for commercial sex workers, we visited a school for mentally challenged children, we played with street children as we visited their class on the street, and Nancy and I even got to talk to a girl from Nepal who was placed in a girls observation home after being picked up by the police in the red light district of Pune. Overall it was a week filled with incredible insights and lots of information.
After a few days of confusion, talking to UNICEF state office and several meetings with our supervisor, we eventually reached a consensus on the topic. And it’s a topic we are all very much excited about! We will be focusing on the right to education and the perception of education policy in Pune from a grassroot level. So this week the work will really start for us. Fortunately all of us are happy to be researching this interesting topic and group dynamics are very good. In a week or two I hope I will be able to report a great research design and matching tools. For now, I guess I’ll start reading…
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