This week I’ve been back on the road again continuing a “feasibility study” to explore if and how we should expand our anti-trafficking team to a new city. I met with partner NGOs (like International Justice Mission and Justice Ventures) to understand how widespread the problem of girls being trafficked for forced prostitution is in this area.
This weekend I attended a Fair Trade conference to learn more about how we can grow our fair-trade business (that benefits young women from slum communities). The conference was soooo different from what you would expect in the US.
First, the accommodations felt more like summer camp and had no towels, soap, toilet paper, blankets, etc. I am getting used to these things in budget hotels, but didn’t expect a conference to be like that! However, Dana would LOVE the fact that people are also as laid-back as they would be at summer camp – and often like to take off their flip flops and walk around barefoot (he hates shoes). This is perfectly acceptable here even at conferences and in restaurants!
Second, it was so unorganized. Talks would start and end hours after their scheduled time. It was really interesting to watch and observe the differences since the US is always so focused on efficiency.
Third, I once again found myself in breakout discussion groups where not everyone could communicate due to different languages. India has so many languages that it makes something like a conference very difficult because it’s almost impossible to find a common one that everyone in a room will speak! Almost all of the women who attended were actually Artisans, none of whom spoke English – so I was a little lonely! (Regardless, they all looked beautiful in their colorful saris) At times the speakers would use a language other than English as well, so I used this time to create my personal “Best Year Yet” goals for 2010! So all in all, it was still pretty productive : )
Two other things I found amusing were that one of the leaders was named “jayakumar” (the same as the previous Frito CMO). Also, the conference was kicked off on the 2nd day with these words of inspiration:
“Every day is a gift. Yesterday, be happy that we all learned something. If you didn’t learn something, be happy you weren’t sick. If you were sick, be happy you weren’t dead.”
Sunday I’m heading out for a little 1-day detour to explore a village called Mahabalipuram, which supposedly has sun, seafood and sand. It’s a World Heritage site that is famous for its ancient rock carvings. This is 1st excursion I’ve planned (and my first bus ride on my own), so I’m praying everything works out!
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