2023 Student Blog
January 31, 2023
A Quest for Rubbish
Our quest commenced on Monday, the fourth week of January 2023 AD as my teammates and I marched through the door of Hasiru Dala’s J.P. Nagar office. We sought out and convened with our supervisor, Akbar, and he explained the mission of Hasiru Dala, their aim to design waste collection centers and waste pickers’ houses…
January 30, 2023
The Overlooked Library
Today we went to south-eastern Bengaluru to meet with Neelima at Madiwala Lake. There we met with a well digger, Ramakrishna, who had been instrumental in digging several new wells and deepening another in the area. The first well was used for the nearby public bathrooms and for landscaping. The well was also used to…
January 27, 2023
Attending my first Indian Wedding
When I got married seven years ago, my wedding was extremely low-key. I have been to a few traditional American weddings, all full of love but nothing like what I just experienced attending my first South Indian wedding. As I arrived at the wedding venue in Mysore, India, I was greeted by an entrance engulfed…
January 26, 2023
Seeing the Human in All Things
This past week, the internship portion of the program began, and it has brought with it a new set of adventures and challenges. Team Biome spent the first three days traveling far north into the peri-urban parts of Bangalore, gaining exposure to various water-related projects including a lake rejuvenation, a water treatment plant and a…
January 25, 2023
The Ugly Indian: Talk Less, Work More
Today was Team Ugly Indian’s first day at the office. We had a very agreeable start time of 11:30am and I figured I’d have plenty of time to eat breakfast, get prepared, and head over to the office at a leisurely pace. Boy, was I wrong. Following breakfast, I went upstairs to find that my…
January 24, 2023
A Familiar Unfamiliarity
Today, I took a break from the GCIL routine to head down and meet with my family over in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It was my cousin sister’s wedding and was a chance for me to reconnect with many relatives that I had not seen in a long time, some in over a decade. Most importantly,…
January 23, 2023
Shifting Perspectives
“Step into the shoes of those you are trying to serve.” Today, we focused on this timeless piece of advice as Bhargavi, an independent researcher and educator from the Environment Support Group, challenged us to think about accessible water in low-income neighborhoods through a creative activity: roleplaying stakeholders. Students represented a wide variety of groups,…
January 20, 2023
Design-Thinking Workshop
Today, we attended a full-day design-thinking workshop lead by Karthikeyan, a friend of the GCIL program. As we only had one day, we followed a condensed version of the 5-step design thinking process: empathize, define, ideate, prototype and test. Our process began with a ward assessment of C.V. Ragan Nagar Ward, which was conducted by…
January 19, 2023
Refreshing as Lime Soda
Today was a refreshing day, in both the activities we did and the free time we had. We began the day with a not-so-refreshing start at 5:30 am to visit Akshaya Patra and to see their kitchen facility in Bangalore, which produces 100,000 meals a day for children in government schools. Once arriving, we had…
January 18, 2023
Beautification and Badminton
Today began with a typical Indian breakfast at the BMS hostel, followed by a bus ride to a dirty gray wall covered in illegally-placed posters on the side of a busy street. Here, we were greeted by volunteers affiliated with the Ugly Indian (TUI for short), an organization devoted to bringing community members together to…
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