A Short Video On the Dalit Women of India

For those of who are interested in knowing more about the people I am trying to help, I found this short clip that shows the hard truth about the lives of Dalit Women in India. 

Navsarjan aims to empower the Dalit women in Gujarat, but they face extreme challenges and their work has only scratched the surface of the problem. 

Centre for Science and Environment

This reason I was off line last week was because I was in Delhi for a training at the Centre for Science and Environment. I spent five long days from 10a.m. to 6p.m. learning everything I possible could about the Environmental Impact Assessment Report and the Social Impact Assessment Report. 

All business who wish to set up an industry or expand a current project must fill out these reports so that the government can assure that they are using the best possible practices to mitigate their negative impact on the environment and the individuals who live in the surrounding area. 

That is the theory anyway. Though from my experience a majority of these EIA reports are done in a hurry and there is no monitoring body that assures the industries actually follow threw with all the promises they make in these reports. 

Above is the picture of the class after our certificate ceremony. 

(the guard didn't really know how to work the camera...but it was a good crew)

I went with Sushma and Laxman to the training.

Though the training seemed incredibly long at times, I am glad I went. It gave me a whole new perspective on development, and provided me with a bunch of information about what practices and technologies different industry should and can use to reduce their impact on the environment. Plus I made some amazing contacts that will really help me with my research for my capstone project. 

Finals Week

Finals week is always the week that everyone dreads at school.

 It is a week of late nights, early mornings, tones of caffeine, and hours spent with your head in a book or glued to a computer screen just to so you can finish all of your last minute assignments or pass that final cumulative test. 

This is my last week here at DSK. Next week I will accompany the entire Navsarjan staff to Goa for their strategic planning meeting. The meeting will take place over a three day period,  during which time we will hear reports from all the field workers and district coordinators. Once we finish hearing about what was accomplished this past year, we will set to the task of planning the agenda for next year's work. I will be presenting all of my findings and work up to this point at the end of the third day. They gave me an hour to go through the environmental issues that I see threatening their target audience (the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes), and provide suggestions for how to mitigate those issues in a new Environment Issues Campaign I designed to be implemented over this next year.

    

My research and work in India is far from over. But having such a big presentation to prepare for makes me feel like its finals week all over. 

I have made my rather long to do list, (which just keeps getting longer) and now I am sitting down to work. With any luck I will be able to pull off this massive presentation and finish everything on my list. 

Wish Me Luck! 

Pollution Stinks of Fish

It is honestly insane how blatant some companies are here about polluting. The pollution case that I have been working on for the last two months witnessed a serious new development last week. 

The companies who we know have already been dumping chemical water into the canals of these nearby villages, decided to take their egregious polluting one step further. 

They came to the village at night and dumped chemicals directly into the village pond that feeds right into the village well, as a result thousands of fish died. 

A villager who had helped us before, called to tell us about the incident last Wednesday, and I rushed out to the dump site to take pictures of all the dead fish for our lawyer. They lined one entire side of the pond. Most of the villagers had not noticed and were going about their day as usual washing their clothes, themselves, and their dishes in the polluted water. 

I went out of town for the weekend with my Mom and Aunt who were visiting. I got a call on Friday to let me know that the company had come back and dumped more chemicals killing ever more fish. The villagers were irate and worked all morning to remove the dead fish.  Apparently a number of news reporters came to cover the story, but only two newspapers ended up running anything about the story. The rest of the newspapers were intimidated by the companies. Even the two stories that ran did not do justice what really had happened. 

I went back to the village today to take so more interviews and the saddest part is a number of the villagers I talked to thought the water they were using to bath, drink, and wash with was clean. They thought that by taking the dead fish out they had magically cleaned up their water. 

This new turn of events makes the petition I am helping file more important then ever, and I am going to meet with the lawyer tomorrow to give him all the photos and interviews I have taken so he has everything he will need to file his application on thursday. 

Giving People Hope

Today I went back to one of the villages that has a problem with polluted water. I went with a video camera this time to interview people. Some of the questions I asked were more for my personal research, but most of the questions were concerning the polluted water and the petition I am helping Navsarjan draft. 

It was crazy how responsive people were from the village. They even invited me back later during day to meet with the Panchayat (village level government). It was crazy how much the people did know about. Most of them did not even know what pollution was. They knew the water was bad and which corporations were making it bad, but they did know how or what that means for them and the environment. Only 10 percent of the village is literate and only 5 percent can afford safe drinking water. 

 The water has been causing them health problems for the last 50-60 years. Most of them have skin rashes from bathing in it, and 90 percent of the people have developed kidney stones. One guy we met had a stone that was 18mm long. 

But as we explained to them about their rights and told them about past petitions that we had won successfully, we began to build up hope in these people.

They became animate about getting rid of the pollution and began asking us what we were going to do to help them. We told them that we are filing a petition, but now the pressure is on us. They do not know enough about the laws or even how to write to fill out a petition or application themselves. 

I am going to do all that I can to make sure that this petition has every possible piece of evidence so that the court cannot refuse it, but the truth is once I have finished gathering evidence the final decision is up to them...And in a country that cares more about increasing GDP then about saving the environment...And that is know for its immense amount of corruption...I am nervous that I may not be able to do enough. Even if the companies are forced to discontinue their work they will probably not be forced to clean up the mess they helped make. 

Giving people hope is good but also dangerous, because if you can't deliver then you may just risk the chance of loosing all the trust they have with you. 

But I have become a believer in positivity, and I am going to say hope is a good thing. It is the thing that makes us strive for something more, something better. 

So though I may be a little nervous about how much I hope I may have given these people, I believe in myself, and we should always end things with hope. 

My Work with Pollution

So far my Blog hasn't really mentioned much about the work I am doing here but that is because up until now my internship/research has been kind of slow going. But yesterday I had a meeting with the Director Manjula Pradeep and the organization's lawyer to discuss the cases I will be working on while I am here. For the most part I will be looking into environmental issues (aka various cases of pollution) that affect the people Navsarjan aims to help. 

I am not going to go into to much detail cause frankly I do not want to bore you, and for most of you the details would be insignificant because you're not familiar with this part of India. 

But today I went on my first official field visits to document pollution in the area and take some water samples. I was honestly shocked, saddened, and appalled at what I saw. Below are just a few of the pictures I took today to give you some idea to what I am talking about. 

No I did not alter this photo in any way... the water was really that pink. And in rural India most people do not have access to  water filtration systems. They drink water from wells, which tape into the local ground water or water tables.  That means this water is mixing with the water the locals are drinking causing them all sorts of health problems such as birth defects.

The dogs skin turned green from the air pollution admitted by the plant located behind them. Thankfully the plant was closed two years ago because of a petition filed by Navsarjan. But unfortunately the land is now unusable but families still live within a hundred yards of the plant, and nothing is being done to ratified the damage they have done. 

The one thing about India that really bothers me (beside the way people treat animals, especially dogs), is the littering. The is an overall lack of education and a dependence on plastic that leaves much of India looking like this. This photo was one of the local village's pond which fed write into the water pump that the entire community drank from. 

More polluted water... : (

We actually caught this truck/company in the act of dumping waste right next to one of the villages we were visiting. He was essentially dumping it into the waterways. Don't worry I took plenty of pictures and got the license plate number. 

We took water samples from all of the villages we visited to send off to the lab. Below is a picture of the lake we took this sample from. 

The trees turned black and died because of all the chemicals in the water. Even sadder then this is the fact that a family that lived right next to this site, had a water pump they used for drinking water that drew directly out of this lake.

The entire time I was documenting the pollution, Sushma was documenting me. She says I need pictures of myself and that she is going to make a documentary about my trip. This was taken in the Industrial Corridor, where the corporations who are responsible for the pollution are located. I am taking a photo of a pump that was hooked up to a truck dumping stuff into the lake behind me. 

Here I am video tapping this gentleman's comments about the pollution. 

(Side note: Like me new Indian outfit? I know you were looking at it...haha! I am not so sure about the pants but the dress part is nice)

But I will keep you updated on my work and research as things progress. 

Now more then ever I feel blessed to have been born into the life that I was...where I never had to worry about the essentials...where my drinking water was not only safe for me to drink, but some of the best tasting in the country. (Thank you Washington) So this is a thanks to whomever or whatever gave me the life and opportunities that I have. 

Reason for the Title and the Blog

Two days ago I arrived to India for the beginning of a four month research trip. While here I will be working with several different organizations. My internship for the next few months is with a wonderful NGO (Non Governmental Organization) called Navsarjan. (Don't worry I will go into extreme depth about the work they do later) The internship and research project I am currently involved with are requirements for the completion of my Master's in Peace and Justice Studies.

I am creating this blog both so that my family and friends can keep track of the work I am doing, and so that I may have a space to reflect on my experience here.

I decided to title this blog "Cultivating Compassion"because of the book I am currently reading, a book by His Holiness the Dalai Lama called Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World. The book speaks of the difference between empathy and compassion. While "empathy is characterized by a kind of emotional resonance--feeling with the other person, compassion, in contrast, is not just sharing experience with others, but also wishing to see them relieved of their suffering." 

"Compassion means wanting to do something to relieve the hardships of others, and this desire to help, far from dragging us further into suffering ourselves, actually gives is energy and a sense of purpose and direction." 

This is what I am seeking to do with my time here. It is my hope that my work here will help relieve the  Dalit "Untoucables" of a little bit of their hardships, and will help me feel secure in the direction my studies and life have taken me thus far. I want my work to be filled with purpose, and for my own circle of concern to be broadened so that I may leave here one step closer to a sense of universal compassion. 

So for the next four months I will be working towards CULTIVATING COMPASSION.