Rakhi, Ramazan, and a 'normal' Kolkata day

One of the things I will really miss about Kolkata is the fact that I can get out of bed at 8.30, then leave my house at one minute to ten and still arrive at the office on time. It’s great! Office hours are from 10 until 6 (but actually the day for me doesn’t start properly until after 10.15, when Sumita brings the chai around). I spend most days in the office, and I have been working on three main areas: reporting, information management, and communications, which I will now explain in detail. Those interested can read on, others of you skip to para 4 (smarties may be available for those of you who read on).

For many small NGOs, their project work is their area of expertise, but they have few resources (time or money) to put into aspects of organizational effectiveness – tasks like reporting, documenting their work, or monitoring the impact of their activities. These tasks – particularly reporting for donors - are often viewed as chores rather than an exercise that will benefit the organization. So, my first objective has been to develop a reporting system which will enable the organization to analyse and learn from their work, and also fulfill the requirements for donors. The first stage is the daily reporting for the field workers' project activities. The organization needs to know how many visits they have done, what problems they have come across and their achievements. So I worked with the team developing a format for them to capture this information. Simple, I hear you say. Well, yes. And no. Most of the field workers are disabled women from the slums themselves, which is wonderful and what the organization is all about, but some have not completed primary school, and most did not complete secondary school. Developing a format that they were happy to use and which captured the necessary information, therefore, was actually quite challenging, and involved many discussions. We will see if it will actually be used….

The next level was collating this information on a monthly basis, to assess whether the team has met their targets. This involves collecting both quantitative and qualitative information – for example how many girls are undertaking tailoring training, but also what kind of problems the community workers faced when going to the hospital. And then the information from this can be used in quarterly monitoring – to see whether we are achieving the indicators of success established when the project was designed. It has been quite fun (really!) designing a whole system from scratch - everything was done on a very ad hoc basis before. The reporting has linked closely with my work on information management – it is necessary to be able to store the information systematically so the organization can access and use it!

The other major area I have been working on has been communications: helping the organization publicise their work through developing communications materials and a brand identity. The individual stories of women with disabilities involved with AWWD challenge the endemic stereotypes of WWD, illustrate their capabilities, and the challenges that they face. So I have developed a series of three communications materials based on the stories of individual WWD – a series of posters to grab people’s attention at events, an introductory leaflet explaining about AWWD and the work we do, linking this with brief stories of some of the WWD, and finally a booklet of case studies, based around certain rights (eg the right to livelihood, the right to education) and how WWD have claimed these rights. As you can probably imagine, one of the best parts of my work was visiting some of these women and hearing their inspiring stories.

So, on this ‘normal’ day in the office I spend the morning working on these types of tasks. I have a few options for lunch: often Judith and I go to the local Barista (coffee shop), which is rather expensive, but does have a wide variety of chocolate milkshakes, and is air conditioned. We have to take an auto rickshaw down our crazy road for 3 minutes, careering past lorries and taxis and hanging on for dear life. This deposits us at the crossroads, where we have to somehow navigate across the road without being run down, and then down a footpath dodging past sleeping dogs and motorcyclists who think that driving down the pavement is a good idea. Or Judith and I go to a Chinese restaurant opposite the coffee shop, which does good veg chowmein. Or, sometimes I go with some of the field staff to our local ‘hotel’. This is rather an unusual hotel: it is situated by the side of the road, has wooden benches and plastic sheeting for a roof, and a plate of rice, dal and veg costs 10 Rupees. The food is actually good, if I ignore the ants crawling across the table and don't sit on any rusty nails.

After lunch, on this 'normal' day, all the community workers arrived in the office because it was Rakhi: a festival where sisters celebrate how wonderful their brothers are. Yes, really. Sisters give their brothers pretty bracelets – sometimes bits of string, but sometimes ornately patterned. Now, however, the festival has expanded, and friends give each other bracelets as a sign of affection. Also, one girl told me that it is a good way of warning off guys who are too interested: if a girl gives a guy a bracelet it shows him that she considers him as a brother, and nothing more! I asked whether there is any festival where brothers celebrate how wonderful their sisters are, but apparently not. So, part of this afternoon was spent tying bracelets on each other and eating Bengali sweets that the girls had bought in.

When the day finished at 6 I walked home, past the kids flying kites at the side of the road. When I walked into my place the girls doing a tailoring training course were still there, and were seriously eyeing my bottle of cold water. For it is Ramazan at the moment, and these girls had fasted all day. I also had bought with me some of the sweets we had had in the office, so I sat down with the girls on the cement floor, and they broke their fast with sweets and cold water. They also wanted to see photos of my family and home: they could not believe that my parents house had a separate bathroom, kitchen and dining room. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea showing them.

Evenings chez moi aren’t such fun, and usually consist of reading, writing my blog, collapsed on my bed due to the heat, going stark crazy because the fan is squealing again, or watching one of my 6 DVDs that I had bought with me (again!). But actually, I am usually too tired from working and from the heat to do anything constructive and lying on my bed is the best option. And so ends a normal Kolkatan day.