Teacher's Day with Deep Griha Society

This was my first week working for an organization called Deep Griha Society. One of my goals of living in India for a year is to better understand how development works, in practice. I’ve studied plenty of development theory—that if a country wants to grow, it should increase its capital-output ratio, or liberalize trade or whatever else. While classroom education is obviously important, the truth is that theories don’t always work in practice. While the World Bank or the IMF might institute typical Washington Consensus policies in the hopes of stimulating economic growth, in reality, those very policies often do more harm than good. The reason is that not only are there a myriad of market failures in much of the developing world, but culture plays a major factor in development. Economics cannot solve the problem of poverty on its own. Knowing this before coming to India was important.

Deep Griha Society is a multi-faceted NGO that works in the Tadiwala slum of Pune. Their ultimate goal is the "empowerment of the marginalized through capacity building and sustainable rural and urban development programs". They work on a range of issues, including health, education, women’s empowerment, HIV/AIDS awareness, rural development, neo-natal care, etc. I was amazed at how much they have going on. As part of my volunteer work I will be assisting them with some administrative work, as well as helping out with “Wake Up Pune”, their HIV/AIDS awareness program. As a student of development economics, one of my primary areas of interest is rural development. I believe, like Gandhi did, that the key to development lies in the village. In order for a country to truly lift itself out of poverty, opportunity must be created at the local level, in the rural areas. If villagers had more economic and educational opportunities in the rural regions, they would not have to migrate to cities, often ending up in slums working for less than minimum wage.

On Friday, I visited two areas where Deep Griha Society is helping out with rural development. First, we went to a 16-acre plot of land that was purchased by the NGO, about 55 km outside of Pune. They have a small school for the local children, and plan to build new facilities to provide vocational and agricultural training to the local villagers. As part of a celebration for Teacher’s Day, we helped to plant trees. After visiting that land, we went to a project run by Deep Griha, called City of Child. This village is entirely self-sufficient—they grow their own food, and sell the surplus. It is home to over fifty orphaned children, who are all sponsored by various individual donors. The villagers are taught various vocational skills, and attend seminars that focus on self-empowerment. After a tour of the village and sitting in on one of the seminars, we had lunch. The food was homegrown, and cooked by some of the women in the village.

Deep Griha Society is involved in rural development in order to create opportunities in the village. By doing so, they empower people who might not have had the opportunity to experience economic well-being. They allow for the villagers to live a comfortable life, in a beautiful setting, without having to move to a slum in an urban area just to find a job. It was a privilege to see first-hand how rural development can be a success.