Today you can hardly walk the streets here with out bumping into a social worker. The place is teeming with NGO’s. They are competing with each other to win people over to their side or so it seems. Now what is wrong with that?. 

Most of the people here are members in more than one self help groups. There have been hilarious instances when staff of two different NGOs reached at the same place, the same time to hold a group meeting for the same set of people. In another case a member asked the CV to pick the passbook from a pile of 10 passbooks because she didn’t know which belonged where. They take loans from all the NGOs and use the loan from one place to repay the other. Do we want to trap them in a vicious circle of debt and poverty? 

 I wonder whether we are fostering a trend of NGO dependency. People now wait for the NGOs to come and resolve their problems than trying to use their own capacities.  Have we been too ready to provide solutions for their problems? Have we undermined their potential though many of our organizations work with the motto of ‘fostering self-reliance’?  Are we too impatient to let things unfold in its own time?

Are we creating a new class of people-the NGO dependents? 

PS: I work with an NGO

]]> http://chaosunltd.wordpress.com/2006/12/05/10/feed/ 1 eccentric http://chaosunltd.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/gendered-face/ http://chaosunltd.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/gendered-face/#comments Sun, 29 Oct 2006 15:05:36 +0000 chaosunltd http://chaosunltd.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/gendered-face/ ]]> It’s a privilege to be the oldest child in the family; she often receives beyond measure-love, care, attention. The child grows up; a secure childhood passes by with out many hassles. As she reaches late childhood a faint realization creeps in that it is not always to her advantage to be a girl. As she approaches adolescence, she feels as if a wall has been built between her and the outside world. The world outside, starts appearing darker. She cannot help being paranoid and cast a suspicious eye on the men around her- when she walks down the street or when she travels in a bus. The world seems to be closing in on her, when her adolescent spirit wants to break free. She feels an immense need to guard herself from succumbing to the role prescriptions of the society. She tries to believe she  that the world is not all dark; there is potential and hope. Still at times she feels the pull of the invisible chains around her.  As time passes by she learns to take things into her stride but she does not forget that she has to fight the system. Somewhere down the line she also realizes that the system she is fighting is as much inside her as outside This is my story; my struggle. Story of just another gendered face.

I recently shed my unemployed status. And I’m slowly beginning to understand the clichéd statement ‘those were the best days…” I mean, college days of course.

Lazy Mornings

You get up in the morning and you are too damn lazy…

College: Bunk

Work: ???

Vacation!!

College: You get autumn breaks, winter breaks, summer vacations and innumerable miscellaneous holidays.

Work: ???

Sheer Boredom

College: the lecture gets too boring

Go off to sleep

Work: Work gets boring…???

Lazy Again

You are too lazy to dress up in the morning

College: Go in your pajamas

Work: ???

To be continued

not yet, i’m waiting for a real nice brain wave

and i waited and waited

no brain wave happened

and there was evening, and there was morning

The First Day!