Dr. Barry Ackerson
Our primary learning objective was to observe and experience how non-governmental organization (NGO) social service agencies operate in both urban and rural India. This was the first trip to India for all of us, so it also provided a very rich cultural learning experience. Students visited several social service programs in Kolkata (Calcutta) as well as an orthopedic hospital funded by the government. We then traveled to small towns and rural villages in the Santiniketan/Sriniketan area. Students spent a few days attending seminars at the Department of Social Work at Visva-Bharati where they learned about social work and cultural issues in India. After visiting several rural agencies and schools, students were placed for a month-long practicum. Many of them split their time between two sites during the day. The final week of their stay they spent traveling across northern India on a cultural tour of the country.

Kafi Moragne
During my six week practicum in India, I learned a great deal about the diversity of Indian culture and society. It was an incredibly rewarding, sometimes challenging, but overall amazing experience that I am grateful to have taken part in. I spent most mornings working with a small orphanage in the village of Santiniketan and afternoons working at Amar Kuti, a women’s rural development organization. My time spent at the orphanage under the supervision of “Supriyda” Tagore and “Prashantada” Ghosh was perhaps the best aspect of my trip. Some mornings I would sit in on the children’s English lessons and be amazed at how “little” English they claimed to know. The children’s eagerness to learn the nuances of the English language were best exemplified in their wonderful production of The Bishop’s Candlesticks, where all the children, even the youngest, showed a heightened understanding of theatrical humor. Additionally, I would often ask the children to switch roles with me, allowing them to teach me Bengali.

Elena Chiappinelli
We began our India experience in Calcutta, residing at the Ramakrishna Mission, where I noticed an effort toward encompassing all religions and embracing diversity. Throughout our time we were part of many discussions about social work within the context of Indian society & culture. We visited many organizations, giving us exposure to both rural and urban development programs and grassroots-level work in education, sanitation and the environment, agriculture, self-help groups, women, children and family welfare, and advocacy. I noticed the devoted efforts of community and agency/organization leaders, particularly in the rural community. Most organizations seem to have a strong cultural and/or religious base. They also had well-developed missions and solid organizational structures, helping them to maintain quality, sustainable services.

During my practicum, I spent my mornings at Sishutirtha Orphanage. The general mission of the small orphanage is to provide a safe, familial environment for the children of severely impoverished families who could not otherwise support them. The goals of founder and director, S. Tagore, is to ensure a safe and loving environment for every child and to help the children find their own unique paths to self-actualization and economic self-sufficiency. To complement the familial environment of the orphanage is a rigorous academic schedule that will prepare the children for a variety of future professional and social challenges.

In the tribal areas, many tribe members who have left to become educated return to use their knowledge to help with the positive progression of their community. I saw this often when visiting tribal villages during my practicum at Amar Kutir, where I spent my afternoons. The Amar Kutir Society was founded upon the freedom movement of India and is now a self-supporting, voluntary organization working for rural artisans. The missions of Amar Kutir include the development of rural peoples and villages; education, training, and employment; enhancing the capacity for income generation amongst village people; and the empowerment of village people to facilitate change within their own family lives and community. I was often reminded of the difficulty of leaving the U.S. measuring stick behind when in an environment so totally different.

I was able to work with self-help groups in Amar Kutir, which are formed by peers who have come together for mutual assistance in satisfying a common need, overcoming a common handicap or problem, and bringing about desired social or personal change. The members of such groups perceive that their needs are not, or cannot be, met by existing social institutions. Self-help groups emphasize face-to-face social interactions and the assumption of personal responsibility by members. They often provide material assistance, as well as emotional support; they are frequently ‘cause’ oriented and promulgate ideology or values through which members may attain an enhanced sense of personal identity” (Katz & Bender, 1976). The empowering nature of Amar Kutir creates sustainable employment and income generation opportunities while maintaining traditional art, craft, and cultural heritage.

Sharrell Hibbler
When I decided to embark upon this educational journey to India, my ultimate goal was to return to the University of Illinois with a thorough understanding of how Social Work manifests itself within the social context of India. Dr. Ghosh of Visva-Bharati coordinated a well organized visit of several non-governmental and governmental organizations. These organizations included CINI (Child in Need Institute), NIOH (National Institute for the Orthopedic Handicap), Amar Kutir, and Sishutirtha Orphanage. While visiting these organizations, I was impressed to see that several of both the NGOs and GOs were providing the highest quality of care accessible to their client populations with very limited resource structures. When evaluating social work in India, I tried my best not to be ethnocentric and use the U.S. as the measuring stick by which I judge other cultures, and their service delivery methods. However, it was very hard not to observe and take notice of obvious similarities and differences.

My field practicum experience involved visiting and interacting with children at the Sishutirtha Orphanage in the morning; afternoon hours were spent observing self-help groups (SHGs) at Amar Kutir, society for rural development. I learned the most through these interactions with the orphans, SHG members, and Visva-Bharati’s Social Work scholars. At the orphanage I learned a lot about the process of self-identification for orphans living in orphanages. There was an apparent difference in the U.S. conception of self-help groups and the SHGs that we observed in Amar Kutir. In the U.S., self-help groups function primarily as a means for developing a support network, healthy coping mechanisms, and for the purpose of learning new socially acceptive ways of self-expression. The SHGs of Amar Kutir seemed to be more like “small work groups” where artisans helped each other to finish the production of goods for the purpose of sale. Income generation was the centralized focus for the self-help groups of Amar Kutir.

I learned the most about Indian culture by conversing and interacting with the scholars of Visva-Bharati. Through these conversations I began to get a better picture of what Social Work looks like and what it means to the people of India. All in all, my study abroad experience was challenging, engaging, yet rewarding.

Jessie Mackey
After the bustling start of our trip, which began in the crowded, chaotic city of Calcutta, it was very calming to work at a non-government school (NGO) in the village of Ghosaldanga. Non-government schools in India are privately funded and have more freedom in curriculum and schedule than government schools. I spent most of the day at the NGO and about an hour in the afternoon at a government school (GO). It was vital for my analysis and overall experience to be exposed to both schools in order to recognize differences. The GO was extremely structured, rigid, crowded and not a conducive environment for learning. The NGO I worked at was for children in grades kindergarten through sixth grade. All of the children are from the Santal tribe. The positive features of the NGO are countless and it is impossible to capture the passion and commitment this school embodies in this short article. The mission of the NGO is to prepare children for government school by encouraging expression of Santal culture, teaching Bengali (the language of instruction at the school, even though students’ native tongue is Santali) and providing extra resources and help in academic subjects. The condition, happiness and camaraderie of the students, the extensive parental involvement, students’ pride in their Santal traditions and sustainability of the school for over 10 years are all proof of the NGO’s success.

During my practicum, I had the privilege of working closely with a group of 11 students at the NGO. They were in grades five and six and lived at the school during the week. They stayed in a tiny, modest hostel behind the school’s outdoor classrooms, giving them the title “hostel students.” Their families all live within a few miles but the hostel provides a stable environment for meals, adult and peer support, and academic focus. Hostel students spoke very little English so I was nervous at first and thought I would be limited in the activities I could do with them. I spent the mornings teaching English and learning Santali, practicing math (the universal subject), playing hangman on the chalkboard, and drawing pictures. In order to get physical exercise we would walk to an open field to play and exchange knowledge on different games. I deeply enjoyed the days I spent with these children, as they were enthusiastic, bright and welcoming. On the surface, the attitude of the hostel students would not reveal any worries or challenges. However, in my conversations with teachers at the NGO and my own observations I found that there are plenty of challenges and barriers to education. Language is a barrier to education for Santal children and a barrier to receiving academic help from their parents. As mentioned above, most parents and children speak Santali but the teaching medium in most schools is Bengali. Poverty threatens education because some children will have to go work in order to support their families, dropping out of school. Other families cannot afford simple school supplies necessary for instruction. Poverty also makes any education past high school, or paying for a more quality education, extremely difficult. Some cultural aspects such as early marriage (which is a common cause for school drop out) and low to modest academic expectations of women also affect success in education.

This synopsis does not even come close to describing everything I saw, learned and contemplated while in India. I hope it does, however, begin to describe how invaluable this experience was to my personal development as well as my professional development as a school social worker.