India ICS Programme Visits

My flight from Kathmandu to Delhi with Jet Airways was not the smoothest of journeys. During monsoon season I'd rather be on the ground getting soaked than in the air getting thrown around in the turbulence. But needs must. The journey's character was added to by the strange "beer only" approach to the refreshment trolley. I am not joking. Jet Airways - I salute you.

I spent Friday with our Senior Manager for Programme Quality, working through the implications of ICS monitoring and evaluation on our wider PQ systems. ICS is such a huge programme so where possible, we're trying to streamline processes with other internal processes, so it was really useful to dedicate a whole day to exploring ways to do that.

With Sushmita in the Delhi office

After a (far too short!) weekend with my friends Cecilia and Amit in Delhi, I jumped on a flight down to Chennai for three days of ICS programme visits to see first hand where ICS volunteers will be living and the kind of activities they'll be doing. Similarly to the pilot programme, in the scale-up they will be based in three different districts in the state of Tamil Nadu. Four volunteers from the UK will be matched to four volunteers from India and they will work together to conduct training sessions in health and livelihoods in new community youth resource centres as well as visiting surrounding communities to raise awareness around health and sanitation issues. I was really impressed by all the hard work that had gone into the preparations for my visits - as well as visiting the youth resource centres themselves, I was able to meet with key stakeholders and community members and talk to them about their expectations of the ICS programme.

 At the Thiruvallore Youth Resource Centre

Chengalpet Youth Resource Centre

 Meeting with the Youth Resource Centre officers

Community meeting outside Vellore with the Panchayat (village) chief's son

My last day in India was spent in the Chennai office with our South India team, doing a condensed version of the workshop in Nepal. The workshop feels like months ago now so it was good to refresh myself with the content too! As you'll see in the photo below, unlike our London office which is largely female, the Chennai office is made up of all men! They really looked after me and seemed determined to make me put on even more weight, feeding me delicious curries, dosai and idlies throughout the day! 

Lunchtime in the Chennai office