Deep Griha

Yesterday, Saturday, I spent the day seeing and hearing about what Deep Griha (http://www.deepgriha.org/) does. The amount of programs and the size of this operation is much larger than I had been expecting. They have completely filled the first center I visited in Pune. A young lady named Claire showed me around the four story building that was complete with a clinic area, computer center, volunteer room, kitchen, and rooms for the HIV/AIDS program, nutrition program (DISHA), Women's Empowerment Program, educational programs, and childcare programs. Even though it was a Saturday the building was fairly busy with volunteers, staff, and Pune children and adults. It was an impressive sight.

In the early afternoon I finally got to meet Dr. Neela Onawale in her office where she told me all about the Deep Griha story and the evolution of the society. What impressed me the most was how Deep Griha has been able to adapt to changing conditions both in regards to the people it serves but also in terms of administration and finances. As Neela told her story she would talk about how some programs led to the development of other programs because they uncovered underlying needs. That afternoon I took a bus with several other volunteers and an engineer and his wife led by Bhoscar (Neela's husband) to visit City of Knowledge and City of Child.


City of Knowledge (photos below) is a project in progress that currently has a upper and lower kindergarten class and a nursery located about 50 km outside of Pune. The purpose of this facility is to provide inexpensive education to rural children that matches the quality of educational centers inside Pune, but keeps these children and families from moving to the slums in the city. The current plan is to add on standard (grade level) per year. The facility is located on a old poultry farm. Some of the buildings have been converted to classrooms while others are still in the abandoned condition they were left. One of the problems that this trip was hoping to solve with the help of the engineer was the lack of water at the location. We toured several sites around the complex looking for well sites (I think) and had tea with the local farmers while the men were talking business. It was great fun to listen to Bhoscar and see his vision and passion both for this project and all of what Deep Griha does. (The photo on the left are the buildings that have been converted into a Upper KG, Lower KG, and a nursery with a playground outside. The photo on the right is rest of the poultry facility viewed from a hill in the back of the complex that will eventually become the upper grade levels)










City of Child (photo below) is an orphanage that is located 40km outside of Pune. Some of these children are true orphans and others are children of parents who cannot take care of them (possibly because of AIDS, lack of family structure, or a combination of illness and poor resources). Unfortunately it was getting late so we did not have much time to spend there, but we did get to see the children who were playing games and we got to see the dinning facility, sleeping area, and classroom areas as well as the building where large groups of volunteers stay when they are here.

For the last couple nights I have been staying at the Cultural Center where the volunteers are housed. The house is located in a nice neighborhood and the facilities are quite descent. I am sharing a room three bedroom room that has one bathroom. There are couple Indian ladies who work in the kitchen and provide us meals. There are many people from all over staying here, most are either in undergraduate studies but some have already graduated. There is a small group of people from France and England, a guy from Ireland, a girl from China, a girl from Australia, and a girl from New York. Most of the people here are going to be here for weeks to months. One girl that I talked to will be here for 6 months!

On Monday I will get to see a few more centers including a youth center that volunteers have recently been working out. I also hope to speak with Neela more about the medical programs and about how conducive these programs would be to have either rising MS2s or students doing international 4th year electives. It is my plan to include this in my presentation to MS1 students interested in doing programs abroad after their first year in the hopes that a UNC medical student could come here next year. I think that it would be a great opportunity and I wish that I would have set it up to have more time here. My experience with the Himalayan Health Exchange was fabulous, but it would be much different being involved with Deep Griha in Pune because there would be the opportunity to submerse yourself in the culture and be a part of a more in depth form of health care through the relationships of Deep Griha.