3rd week of assignment in India, Punjab

Here is a summary about our 3rd week of assignment in Ludhiana:

26th Feb

LSRM Team:

Very important day for them. They had a promotional CSR meeting with the Potential Committee Members in which they motivated and encouraged the LSRM management why exactly this Girl Child Education Program will be a great value for their company's CSR activity.

Bharti team:

It was taken on the Bharti office, during a team recognition event. The Bharti Foundation Team were invited to participate and deliver the certificate to the Bharti Foundation employee.

PAU team:

At the Agricultural University they ve got the chance to drive a tractor on the student's practice field, here is a proof:

Swabhimaan team:

They went to one of Swabhimaan school to take photos for their new social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, website.

After that they went up to a meeting with IL&FS as it could be a potential partner  with Swabhimaan to teach vocation training to the kids as they get to class 10 or their parents as well as offering teacher training for the Swabhimaan NGO teachers. The meeting went very well for them, in fact they offered to teach 30 of the Swabhimaan teachers for free as soon as Swabhimaan could schedule the training.

What a successful day for them!

In the evening - 26th Feb -  we all went out for a bhangra dancing lesson.
We took a Bhangra/Bollywood class with Footloose dance and yoga studio, thanks to Anneliese. We learned some pretty cool moves!

Here is a video on Youtube that the dance studio published:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1gbaOgOCjE  

27th Feb

LSRM team had the chance to participate in a Hindu festival, Shivaratri is the festival celebrated with great fervor, enthusiasm & glory at Krishna Mandir. A large number of devotees, use to recite bhajans and shlokas & Devotees kept pouring on this temples during the whole day.

LSRM team went to Shri Krishna Mandir (temple) near 15.00 pm which is a very famous & biggest temple of Ludhiana in Model Town Extension, Ludhiana. This temple is one of the newest beautifully furnished temples constructed on 500 Sq. yards with more than 520 statues have been established in this temple, but the main attraction is the 37 feet high statue of Lord Hanuman.

Great Night of Shiva:

...it was just incredible what has happened.

6 of us stayed in the Hotel, but 6 of us went to visit the same temple which LSRM team visited earlier on the same day. Just 10 min after as the "half of the team" left, it was a very bad hail storm and heavy rain so you can believe as the streets became rivers and in some places had up to 20 cm of ice along the roads. Imagine as the 6 team members were out at a Hindu temple... barefooted :o)

#ibmcsc india22

Weekend in Shimla and Agra

Last weekend, the team split up into three groups: 1 group went to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, another went to Shimla to the mountains, and Pierre stayed in Ludhiana to enjoy the local sights.

LUDHIANA: Pierre had a great weekend in Ludhiana and hung out with Jaspreet for the weekend.  He went shopping and even attended a wedding!

AGRA: The Agra Group said:

The Taj Mahal "crown of palaces" is a white marble mausoleum located in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The Taj Mahal is widely recognized as "the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage.

At first when you enter there's a huge entrance like a forth with the otomani influences on the architecture 

Once you enter you can perceive a change in the atmosphere, like your crossing the line to another dimension , like traveling on time (goosebumps) and when you cross the door suddenly at the distance seems to appear a living legend

Add caption

At first was a little foggy and blurry but the my best friend "the sun" decided to join us in this amazing moment, it was just magic with a touch of mysticism.

The environment was just perfect to be there, quiet, reflexive and calm.

 

 

 

SHIMLA: The Shimla group said:

"Himachal Pradesh what a beautiful part of India..."

View from the main square

The weather was nice and we had the chance to visit most of the places which connects the Shimla Heritage Walk on Saturday.

We started our walk with the Jakhoo Temple, which is the main temple of the Hindu God Hanuman. The temple is at the top of the Jakhoo mountain 2.455m above see level.

The entrance

Hanuman sculpture (around 32m)

Dimitri, Anneliese myself and Lukas

Is he hungry?

The temple of Hanuman

As you can see from the pictures that place - Shimla itself as well - is a favorite place for the monkeys. Most of them are friendly, but some of them can be very aggressive as well.

We continued our trip in Shimla and we stopped for a street food at the local Lakkar Bazar. We saw some red himalayan carrots. In Shimla center we found lot of nice places which British colonial architecture beauty goes back to the neo- Gothic structure as well.

The Himalayan carrots

Lakkar Bazar

 

We arrived back to the Hotel at Sunday evening and feel re-energized after this great weekend.
 

#ibmcsc #india22

 

Last week in a post

The India 22 subteams had a very productive week. We are all starting to feel the pressure as the final presentation date gets closer, but we can already see some good results in front of us. Below you can see what each subteam achieved last week:

Bharti Foundation Team:

The Bharti foundation team had the pleasure of meeting with Barthi Foundation’s VP, Mrs Mamta Saikia. She involved the team on a teacher recognition event and shared her ideas and perspectives with the team. Also, during two days, the team attended to the teacher’s math training and had the opportunity to observe the quality and effectiveness of the training. On Thursday, the team hit the road again and visited two different schools the Ludhiana West district. The team was able to observe some classes and also received welcome cards from the students.  It was great seeing once again the quality of the schools and the engagement of teachers and employees. 

LSRM Team:

Last week, the LSRM team continued gathering data for their needs assessment using focus groups, an employee survey, and interviews with employee families.  They are focused on developing a Corporate Social Responsibility education program for girl children, starting with the girl children of LSRM employees.  To better understand how to structure this program, they conducted focus groups with employees and local NGOs (Bharti and Swabhimaan), interviewed 5 employees, girl children, and employee wives, and continued surveying employees.  During their home visits, the employee families were very gracious hosts and it was wonderful to sit in their homes and talk with them about their children's education.  The team really enjoyed talking with the 2 NGOs and over 50 LSRM employees to learn more about the educational challenges and opportunities in Ludhiana and Punjab.   

Swabhimaan Team:

The Swabhimaan team had an eventful week last week. Monday the team went to a wedding in the evening. Tuesday they went to the Swabhimaan school and interviewed children, parents and teachers and in the afternoon celebrated Kazu's birthday and later in the evening 6 of the CSC members went to the clients house for dinner and more birthday celebrations. Wednesday the team had another successful day in the office and in the evening went to their other client’s house for dinner. Friday was their 2nd week status meeting where they presented where the team was in their respective pieces of the project. The team had more partners than they typically work with at the meeting. The meeting was very heated and full of discussion, but all in all it was a successful meeting.  They were all ready to hit the road on their respectful journeys, Shimla and Agra to see the Taj Mahal.

 

PAU Team:

The PAU's team objective for the week was to map out the process of student semester registration. There were several discussions with the CTC (Chief Teaching Committee) staff to get initial input, followed by a mapping of the workflow and then several revision meetings. Here is the team discussing with the main process stakeholders.

But the week was not only hard work… We had another great dinner at Jaspreed’s house. His parents prepared some traditional Punjabi dishes, including the famous “Gol Gappa”. As usual, we ate a lot! Along with the food, we enjoyed a traditional Bollywood movie! Lots of fun and loud music...

Another highlight of the week was Kazu’s birthday!! Happy Birthday Kazu!!!

#ibmcsc india

Weekend - Shopping and day trip to Amritsar

15th Feb. on Saturday was a relaxing and shopping day at here in Ludhiana. Some of us went to shopping to Fabindia where is a traditional indian clothes store.  Before arrived at Fabindia, we tried to mount an elephant and that was amazing experience.

16th Feb. on Sunday, we went a day trip to Amristar and Wagah Boader.
From Ludhiana to Amritsar, we had almost 4 hours travel by bus and the road isn't paved so the bus was sooooooo bumping!!

Amritsar is famous as a holy ground for Sikh religion. We all covered our whole head by fabric and remove shoes off and finally entered to the golden temple.

After that, we ate some indian foods at langar ( that is in general for common kitchen/canteen where food is served in a temple to all the visitors for free). It was also amazing experience.

After we visited Amristar / Golden Temple, we went to Wagah Border that is a India-Pakistan border. Border Security Force were marching and some girls were dancing on Panjabi music.

We had a great weekend and now it's back to work.


#ibmcsc india 22