By Payal Morari | Co-President
Dear GlobeMed Friends and Family,
The past few months have flown by as the rest of the spring semester whirled past us. Since our last report and our keystone event of the year - Benefit Dinner, we have transitioned our chapter by appointing a new Executive Board. We are excited and determined to keep working hard to bring you exciting updates about our chapter and the General Duty Assistant program, run by our partner SOVA in Odisha, India.
Our committees have displayed exceptional growth in this past year, and as a result so has our chapter and our relationship with SOVA. The GDA program's fifth batch of students is an excited group of individuals and SOVA has eagerly been sharing their progress with us through pictures and messages. The progress of the program itself can be evidently seen in the pictures themselves (see attached), with the increased paritcipation, new instruments, and different sessions offered to the students in the program.
Every year, we send a group of committed and open-minded individuals on an internship called the Grassroots On-Site Work (GROW) Internship. Last summer, our interns brought back valuable lessons learned from SOVA, but moreso, they brought back the voices of the individuals in the program. Throughout this year, members of our Partnerships Committee worked to transcribe the interviews between our interns and the students (translator present). These transcriptions were then brought to our chapter to help our members better understand the program's impact on the lives of the women in it. We thought we could share a few of these with you, in hopes that you can hear the direct impact that your support has on the trainees and the GDA program. Below are excerpts from the interview of a woman named Kabitha, a student in an earlier batch of trainees, who is now an employee at SOVA.
Q: What made you want to participate in the GDA program?
A: She was staying in the home, not doing anything, so when she heard about the program she thought ‘perhaps it will help me in the future, for my life’
Q: How was her experience in the program?
A: She felt good during the training program, apart from the health activities, she learned other aspects also….how to face different problems and leadership and equality, how to work with community, how to be a model in the community, learned many things like that, and she also learned some games.
Q: Do you feel like the program equips trainees well to join the workforce?
A: Yes definitely they can do. They were in the house, but now getting opportunities. If they want they can do well. If they want they can go outside and get jobs.
Our hope of sending our GROW team this summer is to explore the impact of this exceptional program beyond the scope of the individuals in the program. We want to learn more about the community's attitudes and how this program has affected the community at large. We would also like to hear from the program's graduates to see the long-term impact of the GDA program.
We are incredibly humbled by our partner, and all the work that they do to empower change. It is incredibly important to our chapter that we raise awareness and the necessary funds for our partner so they can continue running and improving a program that fights the gender and healthcare disparities in Odisha, India. In this journey, we value your undying support as your donations - every bit - directly spread the power of knowledge and education, something that can never be taken away from someone. We thank you for all that you have done to support this empowerment, and we encourage you to continue doing so in the future.
If you would like to learn more about our chapter of GlobeMed at the University of Rochester, and about our passion and support for the GDA program, click here.
In Solidarity,
GlobeMed at the University of Rochester
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
